Ring up another one

Rena Hope Friedman, 41, said "yes" when Roger Adler, 42, asked for her hand in marriage. She said "yes" when he placed a $58,000 diamond and platinum engagement ring on her finger.

But when the engagement ended just 12 days later and Adler asked for his ring back, the answer was a resounding "no."

Now Adler is suing his former flame in Manhattan Supreme Court, alleging that Friedman is an ice queen who runs a cottage industry of accepting marriage proposals -- and the hefty jewels that accompany them -- then breaking off the affairs and keeping the rocks.
STONE COLD: Rena Hope Friedman (left, with Roger Adler) allegedly has a past of pocketing bling from sabotaged marital engagements.

He claims his ex-future wife was "previously engaged to an other male . . . the engage ment ended under similar circum stances . . . [she] failed to return the engagement ring in the previous matter," according to court papers.

Adler said the star- crossed lovers met at a Hamptons Labor Day party, where their mothers introduced them. After that, he said, she was hell-bent on marriage. The two courted for only six weeks before Adler proposed at the Diamond Cellar store in Columbus, Ohio, where Adler, a clinical opthamoligist, lives.

"She kept rushing me and rushing me," he said.

When he slipped a radiant-cut, 4-carat diamond ring with diamond side stones set in a platinum band onto her hand, Friedman accepted.

But the very next day, Friedman managed to convince the appraiser, who valued the ring at $70,000, to put her name on the appraisal in preparation for selling the ring in her name, he said.

"The lies were piled higher and higher," he said. "You have no idea."

For instance: She told him she was 30 but turned out to be 41, said Adler. He couldn't ever figure out what she did for a living, though she claimed to sell high-end cosmetics. Also, she said she was moving to Ohio to be with her betrothed but never hired movers.

Plus, he said, she began making pricey demands, including that he buy a new BMW and book first-class tickets to Australia for their honeymoon.

"No one travels coach to Australia," she allegedly told him.

"It was more finance than romance," the distraught Adler said.

The final straw came when Friedman insisted that Adler's elderly parents not attend the Nov. 6 wedding.

"They've seen two already," she allegedly said, referring to Adler's brothers. "They've had their share."

Adler ended the engagement on Oct. 29, after less than two weeks.

In the suit, Adler accuses Friedman of fraud, claiming she intended to ditch him and keep the ring all along.

Adler's attorneys say the case law regarding engagement rings is crystal clear: an engagement ring belongs to the person who bought it until the marriage occurs.

When a reporter called Friedman's home, the woman who answered angrily hung up.

- Indian Journalist.