The Case Of The Ring And The Broken Engagement

A would-be groom cancels the wedding—in a text message. Does that tacky move mean his ex-fiancée can keep her diamond?

- Vicki Glembocki

THEY MET AT a golf tournament in 2009. He was a New York restaurateur. She was a nail technician. Two years later, during a spring vacation in Florida, Louis Billittier Jr proposed to Christa Clark with a whopper of an engagement ring—a 2.97-carat diamond worth $53,000. Clark said yes. They set the date for 15 September 2012.

The couple lived together in Billittier’s Hamburg home in New York as they prepped and planned for the wedding. Billittier paid for Clark’s mobile phone and for her car and health insurance. In fact, according to the Buffalo News, he’d been generous throughout their relationship, taking her on trips and buying her a diamond necklace and diamond-and-sapphire earrings.