Postlude
New York Star
August 4, 2018
Disgraced investor sentenced for first degree rape of socialite wife
Setting a landmark precedent for marital rape, Calvin Gardner, originally known as Károly Kertész before changing his name in 2004, was sentenced today for twenty-five years in a maximum-security prison for several counts of physical assault and rape of his estranged wife, New York socialite Nina de Vries. The case first burst on the scene when a 2013 video recording of Ms. de Vries being assaulted by her husband in an elevator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was leaked and went viral.
Gardner has faced nothing but legal woes over the last few years, but managed to elude them until last month, when former Brooklyn prosecutor Matthew Zola uncovered long term extortion of local judges and law enforcement officials. Mr. Zola was originally an attorney with the bureau pursuing the trafficking charges that Mr. Gardner eluded late last year.
“Even though I was off the case, something wasn’t right,” he said. “As a friend of the family, I couldn’t let it slide. So I did some digging, and it was pretty obvious what was going on.”
As a result of his work, six separate judges in the New York City districts have been indicted with child rape and corruption charges. Additionally, the Brooklyn DA has filed an appeal in the original sex trafficking case against Mr. Gardner, for which the disgraced businessman could face an additional fifty years if convicted. Additionally, the Italian government recently made a public extradition request for Mr. Gardner to stand trial for the murder of Giuseppe Bianchi, a literature and arts professor in Florence.
Ms. de Vries was not present at the sentencing and could not be reached for comment, but many speculate she may be present next week for the final hearing of her divorce proceedings against Mr. Gardner, which she refiled on grounds of abuse. Ms. de Vries is asking for full custody of their daughter, whom she has revealed is not even biologically related to Mr. Gardner, but a product of Ms. de Vries’s affair with Professor Bianchi when she was an exchange student abroad.