It took a Manhattan jury less than three hours to convict millionaire “Linen King” George Bardwil of assault for slamming the head of his much younger ex-wife into the floor of his posh Turtle Bay pad.
The CEO of Bardwil Home looked downcast as the foreman read the verdict before Justice Maxwell Wiley. His first ex-wife and their two daughters, who sat in the gallery for the one-week trial, looked crestfallen.
During closing arguments Tuesday, prosecutors told jurors it wasn’t a crime to be a gold digger.
“If she wanted money that badly she could have continued sleeping with him – it seemed to have worked until then,” said Manhattan Assistant District Attorney James Vinocur. “It’s not a crime to take that money. It’s a crime to slam that person’s head into the ground.”
Emiko, 28, told jurors last week that her ex-husband, 62, viciously attacked her May 9 2012 after she refused to be intimate with him.
She was staying with George while she recovered from dental surgery. The pair had already divorced but he’d continued to support her, paying her rent at a nearby apartment and her medical bills.
The fight erupted when he saw her texting someone on her iPhone, snatched it from her and demanded her password.
The enraged mogul then dragged her to the floor by her hair, called her “whore” and bounced her head against the ground, she testified in a thick French accent.
“I was sure I was going to die right there,” the Quebec native, six months pregnant. sobbed on the stand as she clutched her stomach. “Please don’t kill me, I have my family, my parents.”
After fleeing the apartment barefoot, she called 911 and was taken to the hospital where she needed three staples to close a bloody gash on the back of her head.
Defense lawyer Michael Bachner blasted Emiko as a gold digger who used an accident as an opportunity to profit.
“Isn’t it true that Mr. Bardwil got upset and followed you and you tripped backward and hit the side of your head on the Corian counter and fell on your elbow?” Bachner asked on cross examination.
“No,” she said,.
Emiko has a $ 15 million civil suit pending against the bedsheet bad boy alleging she endured horrific abuse during their marriage and the criminal conviction against him will bolster her claim.
Bachner portrayed Emiko as a young woman with a pattern of seducing older men.
The curvy blond admitted that as a teenager she met millionaire CEO Stephen Yohay, now 64, on a dating web site and he flew her to New York for the weekend.
The aspiring fashion designer also said she’d recently remarried a successful California businessman in his 50s.
“We’re disappointed by the jury’s verdict, we disagree with it and we’ll pursue appellate remedies,” said Bachner as he left court with his glum-looking client.
The linen magnate faces a maximum of 7 years in prison. He also has a pending gun possession case for allegedly using an illegal weapon to fend off an intruder from his home. He’s due back in court October 8.
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