$12,000 pink sapphire a fake, lawsuit says

Sep 12, 2023

Mary Ellen Frabizzio of Greenville told her husband a pink sapphire ring was at the top of her wish list. But nothing could have prepared Frabizzio for her birthday in October 1999. Her present: a $12,000 ring with a 4-carat pink sapphire and six diamond baguettes.

"I went nuts. I was jumping up and down for joy," Frabizzio said. "I never expected one that big. I was just overjoyed."

Sixteen years later, Frabizzio can't even look at a pink sapphire without feeling sick. In December, her husband, Sam, had the gemstone examined by the American Gemological Laboratories for insurance purposes. The report came back that the stone for which Sam Frabizzio had paid $9,000 alone – not including the diamonds and gold mounting – had been produced in a laboratory, according to court documents.

The sapphire that Sam Frabizzio bought from Carl Doubet Jr. Jewelers in Greenville was actually worth $10 in 1999, court papers say. Today, the stone has appreciated to about $30, legal papers say.

"I was extremely proud of that ring," Frabizzio said, adding the ring has never been out of her possession. "I wore it a lot and got an awful lot of compliments. And all these years, I was wearing that fake. I feel like a fool showing off that ring. I can't get that out of my head. Here all that excitement and Sam spent all that money, and it's a fake."

Now, Sam Frabizzio, a Wilmington lawyer, wants the Carl Doubet Jr. business entities and its owners Nola Doubet Hendry and Frank Hendry to pay $37,500 to replace the ring, plus another $2,500 that he paid in insurance over 15 years, court documents say. The Hendrys offered to replace the stone, but Frabizzio said she doesn't want another sapphire from them because of the negative association.

Sam Frabizzio has sued in Delaware Court of Common Pleas alleging the Hendrys and their businesses engaged in deceptive trade practices and breached their contract to sell a natural pink sapphire.

The Hendrys declined to comment, as did their lawyer. In their answer to the lawsuit, the Hendrys say Frabizzio's claim is barred by the statute of limitations. The Hendrys say they extended no warranties to Frabizzio.

According to the Hendrys, any claim was due to the actions and negligence of an appraiser, Aurora A. Costello of AAS Appraisal of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, court papers say. The Hendrys and Doubet entities have filed a third-party lawsuit against Costello. A lawyer for Costello could not be reached for comment.

Dan Doubet, a cousin of Nola Hendry and the operator of a completely separate jewelry business in Pennsylvania called Dan Doubet Jewelers of Chadds Ford, defended the Hendrys saying they're "extremely reputable."

Honest mistakes can happen because it's "extremely difficult to tell the difference between a lab-grown and natural stone," Doubet said. If the Hendrys offered to replace the stone, the situation should be settled outside of a courtroom, Doubet said.

"I just think the lawsuit is ridiculous," Doubet said. "Our name means a whole lot to all of us."

The ring, which was promised to the Frabizzios' daughter, Melissa, 36, is now unwearable because the fake stone has not been properly reset in the 14-karat gold ring. Not that Mary Ellen or Melissa Frabizzio, who on occasion had worn the ring to important events, would wear it. Melissa cringes to think she had on a stone that could have come from a "gumball" machine.

"This is like carrying a fake [designer] purse," Melissa said.

For her part, Mary Ellen Frabizzio doesn't even want another pink sapphire ring to pass to her daughter. Melissa doesn't want one either.

"Now, when I think of pink sapphires, the immediate thought that goes through my head is: fake, fake, fake," Frabizzio said.

Long-time customers of jewelers

Mary Ellen and Sam Frabizzio had been customers of Doubet jewelers since the 1970s. For their fifth anniversary in 1976, the Frabizzios bought a Waterford crystal chandelier at the Carl A. Doubet Jr. jewelry store at Ninth and Orange Streets in Wilmington.

At the Greenville store, the Frabizzios had bought at least 75 items, including five Rolex watches for Sam and Mary Ellen and their three daughters, Veronica, Melissa and Samantha.

Over the years, the Frabizzios would attend the Hendrys' annual Christmas party held at their home.

Frabizzio is most upset by how the Hendrys responded to the news that the stone was a fake. At first, Nola Hendry said it wasn't the same stone she sold Sam Frabizzio in 1999, Frabizzio said. But since 1999 the ring has either been worn or in a safe, Frabizzio said. It was never sent out or left at a jewelers, she said.

"I don't even want another piece of jewelry," Frabizzio said. "I'm absolutely shocked by the treatment. That's the thing that bothers me."

It's especially upsetting because the Frabizzios had been such good customers over the decades, Frabizzio said. She even remembers when the founder, Carl Doubet Jr., worked in the store in Wilmington.

"He was very honorable man," Frabizzio said of Doubet, who at one time had several stores in New Castle County.

The Doubet family is proud of its long heritage in the jewelry business. It began when Carl Doubet Sr. opened a jewelry store in Washington, D.C., in 1904 before moving his business to Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1915.

Carl Doubet Jr. began in Wilmington in 1938 with a store at 10th and Orange streets. In 1958, the store moved to Ninth and Orange streets.

By 1966, a third generation of Doubet, Nola Marie Doubet, daughter of Carl Jr. and a certified gemologist, was working in her father's store in Wilmington. After Nola married Frank T. Hendry Jr. in 1970, Hendry joined the business.

The Wilmington store closed in 1991, and the Hendrys operated solely out of a store in the Greenville Center off Kennett Pike. In 2011, the store relocated to a single store at 2900 Concord Pike just north of the Charcoal Pit.

"With a lineage that has gone from great-grandfather to grandfather, mother to son, the Doubet name has [been] synonymous with the finest in diamonds and gemstones for over 117 years. Members of the American Gem Society, a distinction that only two share in the entire state of Delaware, you know that with walking through the doors at Carl Doubet Jewelers, that they adhere to the highest in ethics and honesty, and a reputation that's as brilliant as the diamonds they sell," the store's website says.

Other jewelers with the Doubet name are not part of the Delaware business, but they are all share the same ancestors, Dan Doubet said.

"Just about everybody with the Doubet name in America is part of the same family," Dan Doubet said.

'I didn't even believe him'

When the Hendrys' holiday party invitation arrived last year, the Frabizzios did not attend. By that time, the Frabizzios knew the stone had been grown in a laboratory.

The discovery process began in October when it was recommended to Sam Frabizzio that he have several items of the family's jewelry certified by the American Gemological Laboratories, according to court documents.

The pink sapphire was removed from the mounting by J&D Jewelers Inc. and sent to AGL, according to court documents. Weeks later, Sam Frabizzio got a call that the lab had identified the stone as synthetic, the complaint says.

"You should have seen Sam's face when he told me the news," Frabizzio said. "He knew how upset I would be. I didn't even believe him at first."

Sam Frabizzio waited a few days before calling Nola Hendry to tell her the pink sapphire was phony, court documents show. Hendry then asked that she be allowed to send the stone to the Gemological Institute of America, according to the complaint. Later, Hendry said, the sapphire had been bought from an estate in 1996 and had been examined by three separate certified gemologists, who certified it was not a synthetic stone, the lawsuit says.

Hendry sent the sapphire to GIA for certification. The institute, which jewelers consider the leading authority on gem grading and analysis, is a nonprofit education and research organization whose mission is to protect consumers by providing independent and unbiased gem evaluations, according to its website.

At the end of December, the GIA report came back that the stone was a synthetic corundum produced in a laboratory. The Hendrys then acknowledged they sold Frabizzio the synthetic gem in 1999, court documents say.

But they refused to pay the $40,000 to cover the replacement value and insurance costs, according to the complaint.

Sam Frabizzio sued in March.

"I'm not looking for a windfall," Sam Frabizzio said. "I'm just looking for sufficient amount of money to make me whole and to replace in today's market what I should have gotten in 1999."

For her part, Mary Ellen Frabizzio said the whole incident has left a bitter taste.

"When you get burnt like that, it just really, really makes an impact," Mary Ellen Frabizzio said. "Supposedly, you can't rob a person of a memory. But you can. They robbed me of that memory of my birthday."

Contact Maureen Milford at (302) 324-2881 or [email protected].