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Man Chooses 'Manhattan Lifestyle' Over Staten Island Wife, Suit Claims

By Nicholas Rizzi | July 10, 2017 4:43pm
 The Lower Manhattan skyline, as seen from the newly accessible roof of Castle Williams.
The Lower Manhattan skyline, as seen from the newly accessible roof of Castle Williams.
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DNAinfo/Julie Shapiro

NEW YORK CITY — A man chose a "Manhattan lifestyle" over his Staten Island wife, a lawsuit claims.

Kirsten Larson claimed her ex-husband, Wesley Smith, waged a "diabolical campaign" to drive her away from the marriage so he could live like his tech co-workers in Manhattan, the New York Post first reported.

"Lured by the prospect of big money and a Manhattan lifestyle, [Smith] decided Kirsten no longer fit in his life-picture," the suit reads.

The suit, filed in Staten Island Supreme Court last month by her father Robert Larson, seeks $42,000 in damages for psychiatric care, emotional distress and the costs for her moving out of their Manhattan home, according to court papers.

The couple first met in 2005 while they attended Full Sail University in Florida, according to the suit. They fell in love, got engaged and were married a year later in a "festive wedding" featured on Style Network's "Whose Wedding is it Anyway?"

After the wedding they moved into a Staten Island home near Larson's family and friends, the suit claims.

Larson has dealt with several medical issues since she was young, including the chronic lung disease pulmonary hypertension, and Smith tended to her needs and researched different treatment options for her.

However, things changed when Smith landed a job with stock options for the startup Button — a mobile deep-linking service — in 2014 at their Manhattan office.

Smith started to watch his single co-workers "living a 'Manhattan' lifestyle, spending freely, with no responsibilities other than to write computer code," and wanted it for himself, the suit claims.

He relocated the couple away from Larson's friends and family to Manhattan, stopped helping with her medical conditions and ditched family events to hang out with his tech friends instead, the suit claims.

Larson claims that Smith even left her in the ICU of Staten Island University Hospital for a week to attend an Apple conference in San Francisco with his friends.

His actions were a "heinous, evil, almost criminal 'campaign'" to get Larson to leave him, constantly berating her when they were alone, the suit claims.

"[Smith] issued a daily dose of criticism about Kirsten's routine. Telling her that she never finishes anything, has no plan, does no contribute to the household, has no ambition," the suit reads.

Larson eventually left Smith and Manhattan and filed the suit against her ex-husband.

Her father also sued Smith for $106,000 last year over money he laid out to help the couple with mortgage payments, a car and central air conditioner, court records show. Smith counter-sued for $6 million claiming he never asked for the help.

Robert Larson did not want to comment for this story.