A Brooklyn businessman can enforce a prenuptial agreement against his wife of 12 years — even though he promised never to use it and even joined her in ripping up the contract and throwing it in the ocean on their honeymoon, a judge has ruled.
Ezra Braha, 44, convinced his then-fiancée, Rina Braha, 37, to sign the prenup during their “whirlwind engagement of less than three weeks” in 2002 by saying his father “threatened to cut him off” otherwise, court papers state.
He even promised they would tear up the contract together after they wed.
Rina “alleges that while they were on the cruise, both parties tore up their copies of the prenuptial agreement and threw the pieces into the ocean,” court papers state.
Rina’s lawyer, Laurie Mermelstein, deposed Ezra about the alleged deceit.
“He said, ‘I ripped it up, but I only ripped up a copy,’ ” Mermelstein said. “He said it was never his intention to rip up the original; he couldn’t betray his father.”
Ezra kept the real prenup for when the marriage hit the rocks, court papers state.
Rina “thereafter believed that the prenuptial agreement no longer existed until [Ezra], in one of his fits of rage, dumped a copy on the table,” according to Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Sunshine’s decision.
Rina also accused Ezra of hiding the fact that he held a 25 percent stake in his multimillion-dollar family business which owns apartments in Brooklyn and hotels and malls in New Jersey, court papers state.
The prenup caps alimony payments at five years and also limits Rina’s ability to win marital assets.
Sunshine ruled that the prenup stands — honeymoon shredding notwithstanding — because the document expressly states that no promises or covenants outside the prenup shall matter or be taken into account and because each Braha had their own lawyer repping them.
“In this case, defendant fails to make a sufficient showing that would warrant setting the prenuptial agreement aside,” the decision states.
Rina has two children from a previous marriage and two kids with Ezra. She lives with all four kids in Gravesend, Brooklyn.