A New York doctor took his estranged wife to court to demand she give him his kidney back - or pay him $1.5million in compensation.
Dr Richard Batista - a prominent Long Island vascular surgeon,
Cornell graduate, and father of three - gave his wife his kidney when
she suffered a serious sickness in 2001 in a desperate bid to save her life -
and, ironically, their marriage. But, though Dawnell Batista lived, the marriage gamble failed.
'There is no deeper pain you can ever express than betrayal from someone who you loved and devoted your whole life to,' Dr Batista said.
Doctor Richard Batista claimed that his wife was cheating on him 2 years after the transplant. Sadly for Richard, he lost the court case and didn’t get back his kidney or the money he demanded.
The pair met two decades ago while he was a resident and she a training nurse. They fell in love and married in 1990, and had three daughters. But the marriage slowly began to fall apart. Even so, in 2001, when Mrs Batista, a nurse, had gone into renal failure, her husband did not think twice.
'She
was my wife. My priority was to save her life, save her life and future
of our children and hopefully with that in mind keep the marriage
alive,' he said. 'When I donated …
the next day on my feet going down hallway to visit her in adjoining
room, there was no greater feeling on this planet,' he told CBS. 'As God is my witness, I felt I could put my arm around Jesus Christ.
[It was] unbelievable. I was walking on a cloud. I did the right thing
for her to this day. I could still do it again.'
Then, Mrs Batista filed for divorce in 2005. Now Dr Batista is accusing
her of having an affair and throwing him out of their million-dollar
Massapequa home. He claimed he was suing for the kidney because his wife is now denying him contact with their then three children, ages 8, 11 and 14.
'I saved her life,' he told reporters. 'This divorce is killing me.'
According to the verdict handed down to him, “marital property” covers a wide range of things, but human tissues or organs are not among them. It further said that Richard Batista’s effort to extort money from his wife in exchange for the kidney he gave was not only illegal, but it could lead to criminal prosecution.
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