Associated Press

Jul. 7, 2006 05:05 PM



NEW YORK - A woman who found out that the man who proposed to her was still married can keep the $40,000 engagement ring he gave her, even though she was the one who broke off the relationship, a judge has ruled.



Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Rolando T. Acosta said that because Brian Callahan was still married when he gave Dana Clyburn Parker a 3.41-carat diamond engagement ring, the agreement to marry was void and she did not have to return the ring.



Parker, of Charleston, South Carolina, and Callahan, of Manhattan, met on the Internet in September 2001 and started dating a month later. After they got engaged in July 2002 in South Carolina, she moved to New York to live with him, the judge wrote.



Parker, a mortgage broker, dumped Callahan, who works in the financial services industry, after finding evidence on his computer that he had been trolling for women on the Internet and after learning he was married, said her lawyer, Kevin Conway.



Callahan, 36, sued in July 2003 to get back the ring — or alternatively $40,000 — after Parker had left him the previous month. He also sought the return of his personal property, including antique lamps, candle holders and a brass box.



Parker's lawyer argued in court papers that because Callahan was still married to another woman in Massachusetts, the diamond ring could not be an engagement gift "in contemplation of marriage." Rather, he said, it was just a gift and she was entitled to keep it.



"If you're married, you are legally prohibited from entering into another contract to get married," Conway said. "What happened here was he entered another contract to marry while he misrepresented what his true legal status was."



The judge agreed. He noted that Callahan had gotten in Massachusetts in June 2002 a judgment of divorce nisi, meaning the severance from his wife had been approved but would not be official and absolute for another 90 days.



But citing a Massachusetts case that he said was consistent with New York law, the judge wrote that "a couple is not divorced until the judgment becomes absolute."



Callahan's lawyer, Daniel Clement, said his client had not decided whether to appeal.



Clement said he believes that although one cannot marry during the 90 days between the divorce approval and the final decree, one can get engaged.



The judge said that although Parker could keep the ring, she had to return Callahan's personal property.