NEW YORK (AP) — A former Playboy centerfold involved in a custody battle apparently jumped with her 7-year-old son to their deaths from the 25th floor of a Manhattan hotel, law enforcement officials said Friday.
Stephanie Adams and her son Vincent fell 23 floors and were found on a second-floor balcony at about 8:15 a.m. Friday in the rear courtyard of the Gotham Hotel.
They had checked into the hotel’s penthouse suite at about 6 p.m. Thursday, officials said, just hours after she told the New York Post that her husband and his lawyer were blocking her from taking her son away on vacation.
“All I want to do is take my son and get away from this nightmare for a few days,” the Post quoted Adams as saying. “But they won’t let me.”
The law enforcement officials said the 46-year-old Adams, who first posed for Playboy in 1992, was involved in a custody dispute over Vincent with her estranged husband, a Manhattan chiropractor named Charles Nicolai. They said police had been called to their home several times in the past few months. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Nicolai’s lawyer did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the case. A receptionist who answered the phone at Nicolai’s office said he would not comment and was unreachable.
Adams and Nicolai had been in “a very tough custody case,” said Raoul Felder, a divorce lawyer who represented her for a time. The standoff was contentious enough that the former couple handed off their son to each other at a police precinct, an arrangement that’s unusual but not unheard of, Felder said.
Felder said he had been friends with Adams for 20 years but stopped representing her in the divorce case a couple of months ago. Recently, she had been hoping to go to Europe to be with a boyfriend there, and that had become an issue in the case, he said.
Still, “she was never depressed while I knew her. She had certain problems, but depression wasn’t one of them,” Felder said.
Felder recalled her as “sweet and ultra-polite” — she always called him “Mr. Felder” despite their long friendship. She would sometimes stop by his office to say hello, bringing her son, who loved to play with a Superman statue in the office, Felder recalled.
And she routinely sent him birthday cards, until his birthday passed this month without one.
She also stayed in touch with Sanford Rubenstein, an attorney who represented her in a 2006 lawsuit against the police department, a taxi company and a cab driver.
Her suit said that the driver falsely told police she had a gun and that police then assaulted her. Officers forced her to the ground, although they could see she didn’t have a gun in her hand and there was nowhere she could have concealed one in her clothes, according to a judge’s decision. A jury awarded her $1.2 million in city money, but the judge later reduced it to $373,000.
Rubenstein said he knew she’d been dealing lately with a custody clash but would never have foreseen a suicide.
“She was a vibrant woman, she had strong opinions, and she loved her kid,” he said. “She loved that child. It’s unexplainable.”
Adams was Playboy’s “Miss November” centerfold in 1992. She appeared again in Playboy in 2003, and she had also worked with Elite Model Management. The New York Post profiled Adams in 2013, saying that she had by then written more than 25 self-help books, ran an online beauty products company called Goddessy Organics, and managed the finances in her husband’s office.
“The stereotypes are sexist and unfair,” Adams told the Post in the 2013 profile. “Just because I look a certain way and have expensive tastes, it doesn’t mean I’m shallow. Style and looks don’t mean lack of brains, sweetheart!”
Adams was also facing a lawsuit brought by a massage therapist who said she’d been fired from Nicolai’s chiropractic office because Adams was jealous. Adams denied the claims. Court papers filed Friday show the massage therapist agreed this week to end the claims against Nicolai. Lawyers for Adams and Nicolai in that case declined to comment. The massage therapist’s lawyer didn’t immediately return a call.
The Gotham Hotel is on 46th street, about four blocks from Grand Central Terminal.
—
By COLLEEN LONG and JENNIFER PELTZ , Associated Press
Members of the New York Police Department crime scene unit arrive at the Gotham Hotel, Friday, May 18, 2018, in New York. Police say a woman apparently jumped with her son from a window of the boutique hotel in New York City and both died. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
NEW YORK – New York State Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris issued the following statement on June 24 following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v.
FALMOUTH, MA – The police in Falmouth have identified the victim in an accident involving a car plunging into the ocean on February 20, NBC10 Boston reported.
PHILADELPHIA – The Federation of Hellenic Societies of Philadelphia and Greater Delaware Valley announced that the Evzones, the Presidential Guard of Greece will be participating in the Philadelphia Greek Independence Day Parade on March 20.
O oceanic you sing and sail
White on your body and yellow on your chimeneas
For you're tired of the filthy waters of the harbors
You who loved the distant Sporades
You who lifted the tallest flags
You who sail clear through the most dangerous caves
Hail to you who let yourself be charmed by the sirens
Hail to you for never having been afraid of the Symplegades
(Andreas Empeirikos)
What traveler has not been fascinated by the Greek islands, drawn by the Sirens’ song of a traveler’s dreams?
TNH and our video show ‘Mission’ marked the change of the season by transporting viewers into the heart of summer.
Sign up for a subscription
Want to save this article? Get a subscription to access this feature and more!
To purchase a gift subscription, please log out of your account, and purchase the subscription with a new email ID.
On April 2, 2021, we celebrated The National Herald’s 106th Anniversary. Help us maintain our independent journalism and continue serving Hellenism worldwide.
In order to deliver a more personalized, responsive, and improved experience, we use cookies to remember information about how you use this site. By Continuing to access the website, you agree that we will store data in a cookie as outlined in our Privacy Policy.
We use cookies on our site to personalize your experience, bring you the most relevant content, show you the most useful ads, and to help report any issues with our site. You can update your preferences at any time by visiting preferences. By selecting Accept, you consent to our use of cookies. To learn more about how your data is used, visit our cookie policy.
You’re reading 1 of 3 free articles this month. Get unlimited access to The National Herald. or Log In
You’ve reached your limit of free articles for this month. Get unlimited access to the best in independent Greek journalism starting as low as $1/week.