Family Law

Retired Wachtell Partner's Prenup Precludes Share in 7-Figure Income for 'Playmate' Ex-Wife

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A retired litigation partner at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz can keep the lion’s share of his income and assets after a brief marriage to a former Brazilian model he met at a “European Playmates” agency, a Connecticut appeals court has ruled.

A prenuptial agreement between attorney Peter McKenna, 72, and Roberta Delente, who is now in her mid-40s, provided for a payment of between $50,000 and $800,000 depending on how long they stayed married. Whether to uphold its ban on her receiving a share of his seven-figure retirement income might otherwise have been a tougher call, according to the decision, but her ratification of the prenup after their marriage was decisive, the National Law Journal in an article reprinted in New York Lawyer (reg. req.) reports.

Wed in a civil ceremony one morning in August 1999, the couple apparently was not destined for long-term matrimony. McKenna sought to annul the marriage less than a month later, and “if the husband’s testimony is to be fully credited, this marriage did not last beyond lunch” on their wedding day, the trial court judge wrote in an earlier opinion.

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