The “Linen King” has apparently folded.
A jury ordered cloth mogul George Bardwil to pay his ex-wife $5 million for brutally beating her eight years ago — after the so-called linen king skipped his Manhattan civil court hearing in the case Thursday.
The 68-year-old CEO of Bardwil Home was criminally convicted of assault in 2014 for slamming his much younger ex-wife Emiko Bardwil’s head onto the kitchen floor of his luxe Turtle Bay apartment May 9, 2012. George was sentenced to two years in prison for the incident.
Emiko, 34 — who now lives in Half Moon Bay, California — filed a lawsuit against him in 2013 seeking $15 million in damages. George was found liable for assault and battery in that case and was also found liable by default for intentional infliction of emotional distress after he failed to fight the claim in court.
George did not show for the brief half-day jury trial in Manhattan Supreme Court Thursday where Emiko and a doctor testified about the physical and emotional damage she endured at George’s hands.
Clinical and forensic psychologist Dr. Peter Favaro told the jury he diagnosed Emiko with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the beating and other verbal and emotional abuse — all of which has left her fearing for her life and plagued with horrible nightmares.
“She was demeaned, she was called a b—h, a c–t, a whore on a very frequent basis. She was locked in the house from the inside and her cell phone was taken away,” Favaro said.
Favaro testified that as a result of Emiko’s mistreatment by George, “She became extremely frightened, she had repetitive thoughts that she was going to die. She couldn’t stand too close to people.”
“She was hand shy,” Favaro said explaining that if someone lifted their hands around Emiko she would flinch thinking she was about to be hit.
“She had problems with intimacy … [and] recurrent nightmares on a very frequent basis,” the doctor said.
“I push a chair next to my door. I sleep with a taser,” Emiko told the six-person jury. “I’m always scared. I always have violent dreams, [of] blood, [of] being chased.”
Emiko was divorced from George the day of the incident, but had been staying at his place while she was recovering from dental surgery and she told jurors that he flew off the handle when she woke up and started texting a neighbor to tell them that she was okay.
Emiko cried as she recounted from the witness stand the day of the attack, “He grabbed me by the hair and he threw me on the floor. He was on top of me with his legs on each side and he kept screaming ‘You’re a liar, a c–t. I’m going to kill you.’ He was pounding my head against the floor.”
Emiko’s lawyer, Raoul Felder, told the jury his client met the millionaire when she was just 21 and he was 54 and as a small town girl “she was overwhelmed by him.”
But Felder said “bad things” happened in their marriage. And the lawyer called George “pure evil” adding he wanted “to destroy [Emiko], to take away her humanity.” The lawyer asked the jury to award his client with $15 million in damages.
The jury — made up of three men and three women — deliberated for an hour before returning the $5 million verdict. One juror dissented but they only needed agreement from five to reach the verdict.
“We are gratified … It should be a warning to many men out there,” Felder said outside of court. “I think my client feels vindicated that she’s been validated and she will pick up the pieces of her life and go forward.”
Emiko and George reached a $35,000 settlement last year that ultimately fell through, leading to the much larger verdict Thursday.
George — who Felder said was representing himself in the case — did not return a request for comment.