A millionaire’s wife has won a landmark bid to have her prenuptial agreement torn up after a judge ruled she was forced into signing it. Elizabeth Cioffi-Petrakis, 37, from Long Island, claims her tycoon husband coerced her into accepting the document four days before their lavish wedding in June 1998. In an ‘unprecedented’ ruling last month, an appellate panel decided Peter Petrakis, 41, had ‘fraudulently induced’ his wife to sign and that his ‘credibility was suspect.’ Calling the document ‘a knife in my heart from Day One,’ she testified that Mr Petrakis threatened to cancel the wedding if she didn’t sign the agreement, reported the New York Post. Mrs Cioffi-Petrakis said her husband promised to ‘tear up’ the document after the couple had children. He also vowed to put their Old Brookville home under both their names.But Mrs Cioffi-Petrakis, who is a stay at home mother, said that he failed to carry out his promise, even after they couple had twin sons and a daughter.On February 20, a Brooklyn Appellate Court panel unanimously affirmed two Nassau County court decisions, saying Mr Petrakis, ‘fraudulently induced’ his wife to sign the prenuptial agreement and found his ‘credibility to be suspect.’ Mrs Cioffi-Petrakis’ lawyer, Dennis D’Antonio said the decision ‘is unprecedented, vacating a pre-nup on the basis of a verbal promise,’ even though a clause in the contract says there were no verbal promises.
