A Manhattan woman has wound up married to two men after hiring a fake divorce lawyer who allegedly failed to get her divorced. Jennifer LaCarriere tells the Post that in August 2010 she went to Express Bankruptcy and Divorce, a so-called "divorce mill" on West 38th Street, and paid $535 to get divorced. But believe it or not, "Express" is not the most reputable law firm in town, and the "attorney" she hired, Leomarys Alvarez, isn't actually an attorney. In fact, she's not even a notary public, even though LaCarriere claims she said she could notarize all the documents needed for a divorce.
LaCarriere didn't find this out until much later, and, believing she was single, she married husband #2 in England in September. But she began to wonder why she never received any paperwork finalizing her divorce, and so went down to the Manhattan Clerk's office in November, which is where she discovered that she was still married to the first spouse. And Alvarez, the "lawyer," had already been indicted for fraud. The Post reports that as part of an expected plea deal, she'll pay a $2,500 fine, serve five years’ probation and do 400 hours of community service.
But that's cold comfort for LaCarriere, who says the discovery tore her heart into a million pieces. "A lot of people will say [I'm] a bigamist," LaCarriere tells the Post, in an article headlined "Bigamy Gal's Fury."
