A woman who won a verdict for nearly $1 million against a Chappaqua psychologist she accused of rape has taken her claim to bankruptcy court.
The psychologist, William A. Knack, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July, four months after a civil jury in Westchester Supreme Court ruled that he had raped Noelle Feldman during a psychotherapy session.
The bankruptcy petition automatically suspended the trial court proceedings until the bankruptcy case concludes.
But Feldman of Pound Ridge filed an adversarial complaint within bankruptcy court on Sept. 15 to protect her verdict.
Knack began treating Feldman in 2011 at his home-office in Chappaqua. In January 2013, Feldman charged that Knack ripped and tore her clothing, bit her and trapped her on a couch during a therapy session. He sexually assaulted her, while making vulgar and threatening remarks as she repeatedly told him to stop and said he was hurting her.
After a 7-day trial in March, a jury found that Knack had committed first-degree rape. Feldman was awarded $250,000 for past pain and suffering, $200,000 for future pain and suffering and $500,000 in punitive damages.
A $957,675 judgment, including interest, was entered in April.
Knack asked the judge to set aside the verdict and to either enter a judgment in his favor or order a new trial.
Then he filed for bankruptcy, claiming $640,624 in assets and $1,664,050 in liabilities. The judgment for Feldman is his largest unsecured claim, followed by $83,705 in legal fees he owes to the firm that defended him. He had already paid $70,916 for legal services.
A week after he filed for bankruptcy, Justice Terry Jane Ruderman rejected Knack”™s request to overturn the verdict.
Knack, who is also an associate professor of psychology at SUNY-Old Westbury, had challenged Feldman”™s credibility and had given the jury an “alternative narrative” of what had happened.
She had gone back for therapy, for instance, after the date on which she said she was raped. Knack claimed that on a later date Feldman sexually assaulted him.
Ruderman cited excerpts from two “controlled phone calls” to Knack that Feldman had made in the presence of a New Castle police detective.
Feldman pressed hard, demanding an apology or admission of guilt, and she repeatedly described how badly she had been hurt.
“I developed feelings for you,” Knack replied at one point. “I let myself act on those feelings.”
“It f””ked up my judgment,” he said, “and I acted in a way that I should not have acted.”
Knack explained to the jury that he apologized because Feldman wanted an apology. “The goal really was just to quiet her and get off the phone.”
He testified that his bad judgment was not about attacking her but about missing something about her behavior.
Ruderman also reviewed Knack”™s testimony that Feldman had sexually attacked him. The cross-examination, the judge said, drew the jury”™s attention to the implausibility of his claim that he could not stop the attack.
To set aside a verdict, Ruderman said, requires a determination that the decision could not have been reached on any fair interpretation of the evidence.
The jury, she noted, based the verdict on its assessments of Feldman”™s and Knack”™s credibility.
“The verdict can easily be reconciled with a reasonable view of the evidence,” she ruled, “rejecting defendant”™s credibility and accepting plaintiff”™s.”
Knack has appealed Ruderman”™s decision. The bankruptcy court has set aside the automatic suspension of the trial court proceedings to allow the appeal to continue.
Feldman is asking bankruptcy court to declare that the civil judgment against Knack cannot be dismissed.
A debt cannot be discharged, her attorneys argued, “for willful and malicious injury by the debtor.”
