Vera Coking walks past Donald Trump, obscured against wall at left, in a courtroom hallway
at Atlantic County Superior Court on Feb. 13, 1997.
... Trump wanted Coking's house - - not to live in, but as a place to park limousines for his casino next door.
"It is a classic case of a schoolyard bully growing up," said Clint Bolick, who co-founded the legal institute that defended Coking in a 1990s lawsuit with Trump ... "He's a thug."
Coking and her husband bought the white, three-story house at 127 Columbia Pl. in 1961, long before the area was transformed by mega-casinos.
She raised her children there.
For a time, she operated it as a boarding house.
... Coking, who is now more than 90 years old and was not available to be interviewed, was having none of it.
This was her "dream house," said Dana Berliner ...
Coking held firm, even as the 22-story Trump Plaza soared outside her windows with its ever-flashing lights.
The house was deteriorating, but Coking's will wasn't.
Demolition crews had set fire to her roof, broken windows and smashed up much of the third floor, according to her attorneys.
Still, she didn't move.
... Trump, Coking and the casino authority pounded away at one another in court.
Then, one day in the summer of 1998, the Superior Court of New Jersey put an end to the conflict.
The court ruled that the casino authority and Trump were wrong.
The government couldn't take Coking's house and let Trump have it.
HOW VILE CAN YOU GET ! ? !
