Woman Sues Her ‘Husband’ Of 20 Years After She Finds Out He Secretly Divorced Her Four Months After Wedding

A 59-year-old woman, Cristina Carta Villa, is suing her 90-year-old husband of 20 years, Gabriel Villa, after learning that the man secretly divorced her just four months after their wedding in a bid to “protect his assets.” The angry wife says she had no knowledge of the divorce and only learned of the legal split after she noticed a tax bill was missing her name. After realizing that her husband, Gabriel, was doing business as a single man, she began to dig into the situation and uncovered her husband’s secret divorce.

Man secretly divorces wife right after wedding – 20 years ago – ‘to… https://t.co/BVjghtKitd Via @BizPacReview pic.twitter.com/m41bk1bLr5

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The Daily Mail reports that 59-year-old Cristina Carta Villa has been married to her older husband, 90-year-old Gabriel Villa, for the past 20 years. The Cristina was a 39-year-old teacher when she met 70-year-old Gabriel and says it was “love at first sight,” despite the large age difference. The pair moved in together, and Cristina married her older lover and had a son, Lorenzo. The pair split their time living between a home in Manhattan and France, and seemed to be a happy couple. However, that all changed when Cristina Carta Villa said she learned that her husband had been living a lie over the years.

According to the lawsuit, Cristina became aware of a secret divorce carried out by her husband just four months after their wedding when a tax bill arrived at their home that did not include her name on it. Cristina said she hired an investigator to look into the situation to determine why her husband was filing taxes as a single man instead of a married individual. The investigator found that the reason Gabriel Villa was filing as a singleton was because he had secretly divorced Cristina just four months after their wedding, 20 years ago.

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The divorce allegedly took place in the Dominican Republic, and neither Gabriel nor Cristina was present for the divorce proceeding. Instead, a representative for Gabriel made sure the divorce went through. Now, Cristina says she wants the divorce annulled, as she never agreed to it and had no knowledge that the proceeding ever took place. She claims her older husband had the secret divorce processed without her knowledge to “protect his assets.” She claims that he is now trying to use that “illegal” divorce to sell their NYC condo to his daughter without her consent. She claims that he used the “divorce” in an attempt to prove that she was not a legal owner of the condo and, therefore, didn’t need to sign off on the sale of the home.

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Cristina says that the divorce was “illegal and fraudulent,” and that he is using it to rob her of what is rightfully hers. According to the New York Post, Cristina says that she is most upset about the situation because she feels that they have been living a lie together for the past 20 years. Gabriel’s lawyers say the divorce was given for “incompatibility of temperaments,” but it is unclear why Gabriel would continue to live with the woman he was incompatible with for 20 years if the divorce reasoning was truthful. Regardless of the reason, Cristina said that she was beside Gabriel’s side through numerous health scares and that he even gave her power of attorney to make all of his medical decisions. Therefore, she says that the divorce was all a ruse to keep her from his assets, and that he now is using that fake divorce to attempt to sell his $1.3 million condo to his daughter without her consent.

“I realize now that during all these years of joy and happiness, and of difficult moments we shared together, my husband lied to me and had the Dominican divorce on the back of his mind. It’s what is hurting me the most.”

What do you think about Gabriel Villa allegedly divorcing his wife just four months after their wedding without her knowledge? If she was unaware of the divorce and the pair did not sign a prenuptial agreement, do you think Cristina is a rightfully co-owner to the pair’s assets?

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