Posted on 07/16/2006 3:13:35 PM PDT by raccoonradio
NEW YORK - The doctor suspected of blowing up his town house rather than allowing his ex-wife to benefit from its sale has died, nearly a week after suffering critical injuries in the blast, a hospital spokeswoman said Sunday.
Dr. Nicholas Bartha, 66, died late Saturday, said Mary Halston, an administrator at New York Presbyterian Hospital.
Police had been unable to speak to Bartha about the July 10 explosion because he was in a medically induced coma. Authorities have said they were investigating whether he might have caused it rather than sell the town house as part of a divorce judgment favoring his ex-wife.
Bartha's ex-wife, Cordula Bartha, told police she received an e-mail from him shortly before the explosion warning that she would be "transformed from gold digger to ash and rubbish digger."
"I always told you I will leave the house only if I am dead," the e-mail said.
Investigators have confirmed that someone tampered with a gas line leading into the home's basement, allowing vapors to flow for hours until it caused the building to blow up.
The physician, who lived and worked in the four-story landmark on Manhattan's upscale Upper East Side, was the lone occupant during the blast. It leveled the building and left the block covered in bricks, broken glass and splintered wood. At least 14 other people were injured, including 10 firefighters, authorities said.
Rescuers pulled the doctor from the rubble after hearing his calls.
The town house and land were worth nearly $6.4 million, according to the city's finance department. The property was to be sold at auction in October to pay a $4 million judgment against Bartha, though his ex-wife had predicted he wouldn't leave without a fight.
"He has said many times that he intends to 'die in my house,'" Cordula Bartha said in a petition filed last year.
The doctor was responsible for other implied threats against his ex-wife, according to court records.
A 2005 appellate court opinion said the doctor had "intentionally traumatized" Cordula Bartha, a Jew who was born in Nazi-occupied Holland, by posting "swastika-adorned articles and notes" around their home. The opinion also said Bartha had "ignored her need for support and assistance while she was undergoing surgery and treatment for breast cancer."
Cordula Bartha declined to comment on her ex-husband's death, said her attorney Polly Passonneau.
The man's next-door neighbors had sued him Friday, claiming the explosion damaged their cooperative apartment and forced them to leave it. A lawyer for the neighbors said Sunday that the lawsuit would proceed against Bartha's estate.
The lawsuit also names the Consolidated Edison utility as a defendant, accusing it of failing to have proper safety devices.
Con Ed has said it does not comment on pending litigation.
To quote the email: "P.S.#2. Ms Cindy Sheehan is desecrating her son's memory. I do not think she ever cared for her son the wishes of her family or her husband who is divorcing her. She disrespects his son's decision to go two times to fight in Iraq where he died trying to save another fighter. You are exploiting him and destroying his values. She is an opportunist trying to be famous on the back of her son."
The man was VERY strange...almost like some character out of a book or horror movie! After his mother died, he rented out her apartment/beauty parlor, in that house. The new tenant would come home to find that he had rearranged ALL of the furniture and "stuff". When she complained, he told her that she could NOT change things and that he had put everything back the way his mother had had it. Talk about something right out of "PYSCHO"!
Boy, was that an interesting read.
He had to read some conservative board. He sure didn't get that from TV or newspapers.
Yeah. Psycho is right. Must have been in the part of the email that I didn't read. I only got half way through it. He rambled. But he knew what the score was.
Supposedly, the doctor spent just about ALL of his time on his computer, "reading about politics". When I read THAT, I immediately wondered what his nic here was and how many times he'd been banned. ;^)
LOL!!! His email sounded like some rambling posts I've read. You agree with what you can understand. ;)
LOL...I think that you and I are on the same page, here; except that his tinfoil stuff I never would have agreed with; here or anywhere.
Read his letter to FOX. It reminded me a little of the manifesto by the Unibomber -- or worse, the letter Mr. Nutjob-in-Iran sent to Bush. Needless to say, this guy had delusions.
It wasn't just the rambling prose. Rather, the weird ideas that he somehow interconnected. With a madman, there always seems to be a sort of "illogical logic" with them.
I also felt sympathy or empathy for him. He had seen his parents work hard only to have it all taken away. They came here, bought that house and his wife wanted it. He was losing again. Wonder if what he said about the judge was true? lol
There was some nuttiness and some paranoia in the email but I don't think he was the monster portrayed in the press.
I agree that the suit should be thrown out. I don't think that it will be thrown out too quickly, though.
Apparently, Cordula Bartha is a member of Women on Waves - a pro-abortion group.
Trying to find a link for that...
From what I read in the NY Post he didn't like Hillary and was a republican. Now he's toast.
Ah, I see, thanks.
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