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'War of Roses' wife makes divorce plea to jury



The saying that good walls make good neighbors apparently doesn't apply to one Brooklyn couple.

With a court-ordered wall dividing their marital home, the pair featured in Brooklyn's real-life version of "The War of the Roses" are fighting it out in front of a jury because he refuses to give her a divorce.

Millionaire Simon Taub, 58, got the green light last year from the Appellate Division to use Sheetrock to separate the Borough Park home he once shared with Chana Taub, 57, his wife of 21 years, into his-and-her halves.

But he won't let her out of the marriage.

She claims she's terrified of him, accusing him of watching her every move and installing surveillance cameras in the wall and outside the house to track her.

Their legal battle began two years ago, when she filed for divorce, claiming "cruel and inhumane" treatment.

Last week, Chana began trying to convince a Brooklyn jury to grant her a divorce - armed with a broken phone, treadmill and TV remote she said he wielded as weapons against her.

"It was a very beautiful phone," the slight, blond mother of four told a rapt jury, showing a cordless headset, the battery dangling from a wire. "Mr. Taub threw it at me. It hit the wall behind me. He has a very violent temper."

"Very often, he tells me he's going to hurt me, he's going to poison me," she claimed, testifying he forced her to watch television TV shows depicting husbands killing their wives. Although most divorces are decided by judges, Chana Taub sought a jury trial because she said she thought she would get a fairer hearing.

Simon Taub said he doesn't agree with the divorce because he did nothing wrong. "He's not going to allow her to smear his name with claims that are totally untrue," said his attorney, Abe Konstam. "That's why he's fighting."

Chana said she has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting her husband, who made his fortune in real estate and manufacturing sweaters, to force him to give her "equitable distribution" of their millions in assets.

He brands her a gold digger.

The wall - which put the former lovebirds in a similar position as Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in the 1989 hit movie "The War of the Roses" - went up in December.

Simon Taub, who owns several homes in New York, stays in his half only on the weekends and lives full-time in a nearby apartment.

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2007/03/19/2007-03-19_hes_going_to_hurt_me.html