Lawyer: NYC Mayor's Wife Should Leave Mansion
N E W Y O R K, May 15 -- Mayor Rudolph Giuliani says the harsh wordssurrounding his divorce should end, but his attorney accuses themayor's wife of delaying the case so she won't have to move out ofGracie Mansion.
"Why has the case taken so long? Because her strategy is todelay it, delay it, delay it," attorney Raoul Felder said in atelephone interview with The Associated Press on Monday. "Shedoesn't want to move out, but it would be better if she just movedon." About the same time, during a press conference in Milwaukee,where Giuliani is touring schools with other New York Cityofficials, the mayor said the negative rhetoric should stop.
"There shouldn't be harsh words about her. There shouldn't beharsh words about me," said Giuliani, who had previously refusedto talk about the divorce. Giuliani, 56, and his estranged wife, actress Donna Hanover, 51,live at Gracie Mansion with their two children, Andrew, 15, andCaroline, 11. They have been married 16 years.
The divorce, filed by Giuliani last October, had proceededlargely outside the public sphere until last week, when Hanoversought a restraining order to bar the mayor's girlfriend, JudithNathan, 46, from entering Gracie Mansion.
After a judge lifted a gag order sought by Giuliani's lawyers,Felder launched a scathing assault on Hanover's character,lambasting her as a "foolish" and "trivial" woman bent ondestroying the mayor.
"I suppose we're going to have to pry her off the chandelier toget her out of there," Felder said last week. "We're talkingabout a marriage that's been dead for years."
During the weekend, a Giuliani confidante told newspapers themayor had been impotent for the last year due to treatment forprostate cancer so he could not have had sexual relations withNathan — in or out of Gracie Mansion.
Then, on Mother's Day, Felder said Hanover was "howling like astuck pig" after her friends had complained about the verbalattacks.
Hanover's divorce attorney, Victor Kovner, said Monday thatFelder had not filed a request seeking Hanover's removal fromGracie.
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