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23rd November 2025
11:59am GMT
A man who donated a kidney to his wife demanded she return it after their divorce.
Talk about splitting things evenly...
Dr Richard Batista, a well-known Long Island vascular surgeon, gave his wife Dawnell a kidney in 2001 to save her during renal failure and to salvage their marriage.
However, when they divorced four years later, he insisted she either give the kidney back or pay him $1.5 million.
Richard, then a medical resident, met Dawnell, a nurse in training, in the 1980s, and they soon fell in love, married in 1990, and had three daughters before their marriage slowly came apart.
Richard claimed that their marriage was already failing when Dawnell went into renal crisis in 2001, yet he didn’t hesitate to donate his kidney once he learned he was a match.
In a 2009 CBS interview, he recalled feeling an overwhelming sense of purpose and joy after the surgery, insisting he’d do it again without question.
Despite the life-saving transplant, the relationship didn’t survive, and Dawnell filed for divorce in 2005.
Richard accused Dawnell of having an affair and forcing him out of their Massapequa home and said he sought the kidney’s value because she had allegedly cut off his access to their three children.
Speaking to reporters at the time, he said: "I saved her life. This divorce is killing me."
Richard further demanded the $1.5 million compensation from his wife if she did not return the organ.
Unsurprisingly, he ultimately failed to recover the kidney or any compensation.
A 10-page ruling by the Nassau County Supreme Court concluded that the organ was a gift, and additionally, doctors noted that removing it would be unethical and virtually impossible.
Furthermore, US law also bans exchanging organs for anything of value, treating all donations as gifts.
There ya go...
