Travis A. v Vilma B. (2021 NY Slip Op 04996) Travis A. v Vilma B. 2021 NY Slip Op 04996 Decided on September 16, 2021 Appellate Division, Third Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports. Decided and Entered:September 16, 2021 531115 [*1]Travis A., Respondent, vVilma B., Appellant. Calendar Date:August 18, 2021 Before:Garry, P.J., Egan Jr., Clark, Pritzker and Colangelo, JJ. Milbank LLP, New York City (Jonathan D. Lamberti of counsel), for appellant. Travis A., Cortland, respondent pro se. Proskauer Rose LLP, Boston, Massachusetts (John E. Roberts of counsel), for Sanctuary for Families and another, amici curiae. Clark, J. Appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court (Campbell, J.), entered January 31, 2020 in Cortland County, granting plaintiff an annulment of the parties' marriage, upon a decision of the court. Plaintiff (hereinafter the husband), a United States citizen, and defendant (hereinafter the wife), a citizen of the Philippines, met online in February 2018 and got engaged in June 2018, during the first of the husband's two trips to the Philippines. In April 2019, the wife entered the United States on a K-1 (fiancÉe) visa and moved in with the husband. Several weeks later, on June 8, 2019, the parties were married. However, the marriage rapidly deteriorated, with the wife moving out of the marital home less than two weeks after the wedding. In July 2019, the husband commenced this action seeking an annulment based upon the wife's alleged fraud in the inducement. Specifically, the husband alleged that the wife married him "with the sole purpose of becoming a U.S. [c]itizen." The wife joined issue, denying the husband's allegation of fraud in the inducement and asserting that the husband had perpetrated acts of domestic violence against her and that she "removed herself from the marital premises for her own safety." Following a nonjury trial, Supreme Court issued a decision finding that the wife had fraudulently induced the husband to marry her to obtain citizenship and that the husband was therefore entitled to an annulment. By judgment of annulment entered in January 2020, which incorporated Supreme Court's decision, the parties' marriage was annulled. The wife appeals.[FN1] Where the consent of either spouse to a marriage was obtained by fraud, the marriage is voidable by way of an annulment action (see Domestic Relations Law §§ 7 [4]; 140 [e]; Kober v Kober, 16 NY2d 191, 196 [1965]). To obtain an annulment, the plaintiff spouse must prove that the defendant spouse knowingly made a material false representation to the plaintiff spouse with the intent of inducing the plaintiff spouse's consent to marriage, that the misrepresentation was of such a nature as to deceive an ordinarily prudent person, that the plaintiff spouse justifiably relied on the misrepresentation in consenting to marriage and that, once aware of the false representation, cohabitation ceased (see Domestic Relations Law § 140 [e]; Shonfeld v Shonfeld, 260 NY 477, …
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