By Anthony M. Destefano
Newsday
NEW YORK — The fiancee of dead 9/11 firefighter Kevin Prior broke down on the witness stand Friday as she recalled how the relationship with his parents deteriorated and led to a court fight over his city pension.
“Since Kevin died his parents have treated me like I never existed,” said Doreen Noone, testifying in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn in a lawsuit centering on whether she should split Prior’s $76,000 pension with his parents.
Noone, 36, a remedial reading teacher from Lindenhurst, teared up when an attorney for Prior’s parents, Gerard and Marian Prior of Bellmore, asked her if she was upset over the legal battle.
Asked by attorney Steven Hyman if she was angry at the Priors, Noone said, “I think I am more upset than angry.”
The city pension system granted Noone a half-interest, or $37,500, in Prior’s FDNY pension, with the same amount going to his parents.
Noone was granted the pension right under a special law passed after Sept. 11 that granted “domestic partners” of firefighters killed in the terror attack pension rights, said Noone’s attorney, Philip Seelig.
The term “domestic partner” was defined under the law to include fiancees regardless of whether they lived together, Seelig told Newsday earlier in the case.
That legal position is disputed by Prior’s parents who contend their son never even lived with Noone.
But Noone testified that she did stay with Prior at his parents’ home and that he paid for some of her living expenses.
Noone, who is now married to city police Sgt. Ed Wheeler, told Judge Laura Jacobson that Prior used to pay some of her expenses with his own checks or else gave her money to funnel through her own checking account to cover her bills.
Jacobson is expected to rule in a few months on whether the city pension system had a rational basis to make the decision to split the Priors’ pension between Noone and his parents.