The Upper East Side woman who unsuccessfully sued her 12-year-old nephew for injuring her wrist during a very big hug appeared on The Today Show this morning with her nephew to show they love each other and everyone misunderstood the nature of the lawsuit.
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She said she wanted her nephew’s parents’ home insurance provider to pay her medical bills, but under Connecticut law she could only sue an individual.
According to her lawyers, Connell’s insurance offered her only a single dollar before the trial commenced, a sum that was obviously insufficient in helping her cover the costs of the two surgeries she underwent for her wrist.
In court, Connell said she loves her nephew but believes he should be held responsible for her injury.
“All of a sudden he was there in the air, I had to catch him, and we tumbled onto the ground”, said Jennifer Connell, the aunt in question. She testified that the injury has made it hard to walk up the stairs in her Manhattan apartment building, and that her social life has been negatively impacted.
“Her hand was forced by the insurance company”, Connell’s lawyers said in the statement.
The nephew of a reviled Manhattan aunt went on national television Thursday to say he loved her – and holds no ill will over her insane lawsuit against him. Shukee Begum says she wants to return to the United Kingdom after joining ISIS and realising that it “wasn’t her cup of tea”.
However, later, it was learned that Connell was pressed to file the lawsuit in order to pay the medical bills she racked up in treating her wrist injury.
Jennifer added she was in “shock” and has found the whole experience “really painful and heartbreaking”.
Today she explained her claim was forced by the rules laid out in insurance law in Connecticut. However, now she wants to return to the United Kingdom saying “it just was not my cup of tea”.
It reportedly took the jury just 25 minutes to find the boy not liable for the injuries, which must have come as good news for the Taralas, who have been dealing with the death of Sean’s mother since a year ago. “We are disappointed in the outcome, but we understand the verdict”, her attorneys said in a statement. “I was never comfortable with that”, Connell said. Our client is being attacked on social media.
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Connell, 54, and Tarala appeared on Today to set the record straight and show that she is not, as one New York tabloid described her, the “Auntie Christ”.
