Portuguese celebrity accused of abusing 95-year-old American wife

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LISBON (Reuters) – Portugal’s public prosecutor’s office has charged socialite Jose Castelo Branco with domestic violence offences against his wife, British-American diamond heiress Betty Grafstein, 95, alleging that he had abused her for decades, it said on Monday.

Grafstein, who is a U.S. citizen, ended up in a hospital in May due to a fall suffered after allegedly being pushed by Castelo Branco, 61, at their home in Sintra near Lisbon.

The hospital filed the initial accusation against the socialite and celebrity art dealer, who has been a frequent guest on TV shows in Portugal, often wearing drag. He was briefly detained after the incident in May but has denied any wrongdoing, while Grafstein has since returned to the United States.

Castelo Branco and his lawyers were not immediately available for comment.

“The suspect and the victim have been married since November 1996, and the indictment states that, since the start of the marriage, the suspect abused the victim physically and verbally,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

“Using such behaviour, the suspect, 61, acted with the accomplished purpose of mistreating the victim, 95, abusing her body and mental health, hurting and scaring her, in the full knowledge that she was his wife and aware of her age.”

The statement from the prosecutor’s office also mentioned the incident in May.

Born Elizabeth Larner in Britain, Grafstein moved to the U.S. in the 1940s, where she married diamond trader Albert Grafstein. The couple bought a house in Portugal in the 1970s, where she moved after her husband’s death in 1991, having inherited his diamond business.

(Reporting by Andrei Khalip, Editing by William Maclean)