David Cone calls allegations against girlfriend Taja Abitbol ‘bizarre’

nypost.com:

accused her in a July lawsuit of setting the blaze intentionally, so she’d have a story to share during an appearance on ABC’s “Tamron Hall Show” the next day.

Heavy water damage from the incident caused $320,000 damage to Rice’s apartment below Abitbol and Cone’s. The Army vet and Purple Heart recipient claimed in court papers Abitbol was trying to “advance her candidacy” for RHONY.“I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it, because to me it was so frivolous and so bizarre I just assumed it was a play on money or a play on insurance from the beginning,” Cone said of the claims this week. “I thought it was pretty ridiculous sounding.”Abitbol, 50, has now filed a defamation lawsuit against Rice.Rice’s claims have ruined her reputation, Abitbol said, scuttled or delayed her business ventures, and almost prevented the family from leasing a new apartment in Miami. “It’s like a rippling effect.

It just keeps lingering and it’s all false,” she said. The fire began after the astrology-loving Abitbol lit a candle for her typical morning meditation inside the family’s four bedroom, four bath, $6.3 million 14th-floor luxury apartment on West End Ave.She blew it out after a few minutes and was getting the couple’s then 7-year-old son, Sammy, ready for school when the family noticed an odd smell.“It smelled nothing like a candle.

We checked the oven, we checked outside … We couldn’t tell. There was just an odd smell we could not pinpoint,” she said.After Abitbol and son Sammy set off for school, Cone, 59, said, “black smoke was coming through the vents.