Sued by ex-girlfriend in domestic abuse case, associate vanishes from white-shoe law firm website
An associate attorney at a white-shoe New York City law firm who made headlines earlier this week after he was sued for domestic abuse by an ex-girlfriend is now no longer with Schulte Roth & Zabel.
Samir Tabar’s bio page had vanished from the firm’s website as of Thursday, and a Schulte Roth spokeswoman said “Mr. Tabar had been on leave and now no longer works for the firm,” reports the Am Law Daily (sub. req.).
The New York Post first reported about the lawsuit filed against him in Manhattan Supreme Court and the New York Daily News also has a story.
In her suit, Angela Kovalesky alleges that Tabar was emotionally and physically abusive after she began dating him in 2010, and hounded and threatened her following their break-up. At one point, her suit says, he put a GPS dog-tracking device in her handbag to keep abreast of her movements and location, and she also alleges that he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in criminal court in Brooklyn last year, after threatening her with a kitchen knife. When she got a protective order, she says, he got one, too, in retaliation.
A graduate of Oxford University and Columbia Law School who worked in banking and for Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom before joining Schulte Roth, Tabar denied the allegations through his attorney, Justin Sher.
A written statement provided to the Am Law Daily says, in part: “Mr. Tabar has never pleaded guilty to any criminal charges nor has he been convicted of any criminal conduct. Simply, any allegation of physical violence against Ms. Kovalesky or her property was either dismissed or never prosecuted. Ms. Kovalesky’s claim that a tracking device was placed in her pocketbook by Mr. Tabar is as delusional as it is dishonest.”
Kovalesky, who works as executive director of the Catholic Alumni Partnership of the Archdiocese of New York, says she sought psychiatric help due to Tabar’s claimed abuse. She is asking for millions of dollars in damages in her suit, which asserts claims for battery and infliction of emotional distress.
