A Manhattan lawyer who landed a job with the world’s largest legal firm may be a pit bull at work — but he’s a monster at home, according to court testimony Thursday.
Anthony Zappin, 30, beat his pregnant wife, planned to break a neighbor’s window to steal cable and Internet for his home and schemed to create a fake Ashley Madison account to take revenge on an ex-boss, according to testimony by a court-appointed therapist, relaying his wife’s claims.
Zappin’s wife, Claire Comfort, 32, a lawyer at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, is fighting for primary custody of their 2-year-old son.
Zappin is representing himself, even though the Manhattan civil judge in the case has fined him $10,000 for his “aggressively hostile’’ behavior in court.
The Columbia-educated lawyer once worked at Latham & Watkins, ranked as the largest law firm. He also worked for mega-firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan before being fired, according to the testimony.
The court shrink depicted Comfort as the better parent, calling Zappin “controlling and coercive.”
Dr. Alan Ravitz described Comfort’s claims that Zappin abused her when she was 39 weeks pregnant.
“He got angry and slapped me. He hit my glasses, he hit my head a couple of times. He grabbed my hand hard and hit my stomach with the car keys,” Ravitz said Comfort told him.
The abuse continued after the birth of their son and up until she left Zappin when the boy was nearly 8 weeks old, Ravitz said.
Zappin denies he was abusive and claims it was Comfort who got violent. He read a text he said he sent her.
“Why am I being so mean? Because you’re a f- -king lunatic who clawed the s- -t out of my face and bit my d- -k,” Zappin read.
After being fired from Quinn Emanuel in 2013, he tried to create an account on the spouse-cheating site, Ashley Madison, in his old boss’ name, according to the testimony.
Ravitz said he ordered psych tests for both parents because each “accused the other one of being crazy.”
The evaluations, he said, found that Zappin was “narcissistic, obsessive-compulsive and histrionic” and that Comfort “had low self-confidence” and “an automatic need to obey others who assert authority.”