She wants to turn his molars into millions.
The wife of a former Lehman Brothers exec intentionally goaded him into biting her arm during an argument in the posh Upper West Side apartment the estranged duo shared “War of the Roses”-style so she could call the cops on him and gain leverage in their multimillion-dollar divorce, a defense lawyer argued in Manhattan Supreme Court Thursday.
Princeton grad David Milberg, 50, was arrested at the luxurious West End Ave. pad at 75th Street in April for allegedly biting and kicking wife Melinda in a vicious tussle over a cell phone.
“Her performance is worthy of an Oscar,” said David’s lawyer Celia Gordon during opening statements in their non-jury Manhattan assault trial. “Melinda Milberg is a liar, she is vindictive she is manipulative, she will stop at absolutely nothing to get what she wants and what she wants more than anything is money.
“She firmly believes should David be convicted in this case her millions will be multiplied,” Gordon added.
Prosecutor Timothy Duda argued that Melinda was a devoted wife of 15 years who suffered a brutal attack after she demanded a split.
Over David’s objections, the pair parted ways in January and Melinda filed for divorce on April 5. They agreed to take turns living with their three kids in the family home while the other party holed up in a nearby hotel.
But the finance big — who now heads up his family’s investment house — pulled a “War of the Roses” maneuver and moved back into their $ 6.5 million home.
The spurned husband showed up at the sparkling four bedroom West End Avenue coop after his estranged wife and brood had just returned from a lavish vacation at Disney World in Florida.
“We ordered takeout food from a Chinese restaurant and set down to dinner and began to eat our food,” said Melinda MIlberg Thursday.
The George Washington University educated lawyer wore a snug green dress as her gaggle of chatty girlfriends looked on from the gallery.
She said her husband walked through the front door and requested a plate of food.
“I told him I had ordered one entrée per person,” she recalled. “But the takeout menus were by the phone and if he wanted to order he could take care of it himself.”
MIlberg said he then angrily pulled out his iPhone and told her he was recording her petulant outburst and would play it for their lawyers.
“I took the phone from him and raced out of the kitchen,” she said. After a bit of marital hide and seek, she finally hid the phone in some boxes.
The phone fracas eventually settled down and the children went to bed, she said. David had agreed to sleep in the study and she took the master bedroom.
But the war flared again after David barged into her room and demanded bathroom access. The slumbering spouse advised him to take his toiletries to one of the three other restrooms available for his use.
The suggestion only reignited the war of words. “He made fun of my weight and my appearance then I made fun of his appearance and called him by a name his college classmates had used to cause him great dismay and he became angry,” she said giddily.
Having found it earlier in the night, Milberg whipped out his iPhone once again and told his wife that she was being recorded once more.
Melinda sprung to her feet to snatch the device and the pair eventually fell to the floor in an MMA-like meltdown over the iPhone.
The wife testified that David pinned her against a large chair and sunk his teeth into the flesh of her right arm.
Their oldest daughter Beverly, 14, heard her mother scream for help and appeared in the door way of their room, she said.
“[She] saw my husband bashing my head from side to side onto the chair and the surrounding objects and my husband jumped on top of me kicking in my shins and pulling clumps of hair out of my head,” she said.
Beverly banged on her father’s back to get him off her mother and she eventually managed to escape to the bathroom with David in hot pursuit, Melinda Milberg said in court.
“[He] placed his head in my face and gritted his teeth and said I’m going to kill, I’m going to kill you,” she said in a deep, sinister voice mimicking him.
When cops arrived she told them he’d bruised her arm and forehead, tore a nail and bit her arm, she said.
David confessed to cops. “I fell into a trap, this is what she wanted.”
When prosecutors played the first recording of Melinda shouting hysterically at the operator, she dramatically made an expression as though she were breaking into sobs and bowed her head. When she lifted it, her eyes were dry.
The combatants have each retained blue chip divorce lawyers. David hired David Aronson whose firm handled Katie Holmes divorce from Tom Cruise. And Melinda retained Robert Dobrish. Neither immediately returned requests for comment.
The couple’s net worth is unclear. On cross, defense lawyer Robert Gottlieb got Melinda to confirm she’d inherited approximately $ 2 million of her own money.
In an attempt to resolve the case, David offered her exclusive ownership of the Manhattan apartment, a tax free $ 5 million lump sum and over $ 200,000 a year in combined child support and alimony.
He also agreed to pay in full the children’s private school tuition, summer camp fees and undergraduate educations. Her lawyers didn’t respond to the offer.
Gottlieb argued that Melinda pushed the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office to pursue assault charges against her husband hoping that a conviction in this case would give her leverage in the matrimonial dispute.
After the nasty April 1st spat, Melinda took out a restraining order against David. On September 20th she spotted him at the Jewish Community Center using the fitness center and demanded that security throw him out before calling the cops.
The pair met in Israel and married at he Rainbow room in 1997. “I loved him,” she said. “He was extremely intelligent, he made me very happy, I made him very happy.”
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