Inmate Wields Legal System Like a Knife Against His Ex-Wife : New York: In prison for stabbing her 11 times, convict sues victim to cancel divorce and to see children. Her legal costs exceed $7,000.

GREECE, N.Y. —  Five years ago, her ex-husband attacked her with a butcher knife. One of the 11 thrusts of the blade ran right through her neck, severing her larynx. Eugenia Golding barely survived.

Lamont Griswold went to prison for 25 years, but he has not left her alone. From behind bars, Griswold has battled her over visitation rights to their two young sons and contested the validity of their 1985 divorce.

“I don’t want to be bothered by him, and he just won’t let me forget. Haven’t I suffered enough?” she said in a voice reduced to a raspy whisper.

Violent convicts have as much access to the legal system as anyone. He cannot be stopped from suing her and neither can she avoid responding. Already, Golding has forked out more than $7,000 in attorney fees. Griswold hasn’t spent a dime: As a prison inmate, he’s considered indigent.

“He’s getting madder every day he sits in there,” said Golding, 36, a $21,000-a-year machine operator at Xerox Corp. “He just wants to make my life as miserable as his is. It’s draining financially and mentally.”

Under the law, it’s no more than a tale of tough luck. Even her lawyer, Herbert Roisman, agrees. “In the legal sense, it really hasn’t risen to the level of abuse,” he said.

Although Griswold, 40, an ex-serviceman and truck driver, has yet to win--one case is on appeal--he vows to keep dragging her through the courts.

“I will do anything that’s available to gain visitation to my children. They’re the only things that keep me alive,” he said in a phone interview from Groveland prison, 40 miles south of this Rochester suburb.

This is just the latest chapter in a relationship that had all the tenderness of a car wreck.

Golding and Griswold met in a Rochester bar in 1979; Golding said the union started crumbling soon after their first child, Duke, was born in 1981. She said Griswold was a heavy drinker, couldn’t hold a steady job and was insanely jealous. He accuses her of carrying on affairs with other men.

Golding said she walked out several times but returned when he threatened to kill her or kidnap their children, now ages 12 and 7.

Griswold denies physically abusing her, but police records show a pattern of escalating violence in the weeks before the knife attack.

Golding finally made the break. She was staying with friends at her apartment when he came looking for her early on the morning of Oct. 29, 1988.

“He was yelling through the door,” she recalled. “He wanted to come in; I said no. He wanted to talk about the children; I said we’ll talk tomorrow.

“He was starting to get riled up. I went to call the police. There was the sound of breaking glass. It seemed like seconds later he was behind me, stabbing me in the back. I remember thinking that it was over, till my friend started screaming at me, ‘Don’t leave me, G!’ ”

Golding suffered a punctured lung, a severed jugular vein and slash wounds to her arms. Four surgeries failed to repair her voice box. She was hospitalized for 14 days, out of work for four months.

She applied to Family Court to deny him visitation rights. He resisted, bringing the case to trial, and lost in April. He is appealing.

Out of terror, Golding says she hid the final divorce decree when it came through in 1985. Griswold wants the divorce set aside. In a motion denied Feb. 4 in state Supreme Court, he contended she violated the law by divorcing him in secrecy.

Griswold threatens more legal action unless she fosters his relationship with the children, who have never visited him in prison.

“They have a right to know their father. They have a right to know both sides of the story,” he said.

“It’s really not about what I want; it’s what’s best for the kids,” Golding countered. “Duke doesn’t want any part of him. I’m trying to make his life as normal as possible. My 7-year-old doesn’t remember him.”

If Griswold keeps persisting--and losing--a judge could intervene and bar him from petitioning the court without just cause.

“There is a holding point, and the courts can control that,” said state Supreme Court Judge Charles L. Willis.

At what point do applications to the bench become frivolous?

“It’s really tough to make that determination,” Willis said. “If there is no issue, then the court can refuse to hear a case.”

For now, to avoid being adjudged in default, “the unfortunate thing is she has to defend herself,” he said.

Golding earns too much to obtain a court-appointed attorney. Her costs will exceed $10,000 before the current cases run their course, her lawyer said.

“His rights are violating her rights,” said Golding’s sister, Michelle Butterworth. “Why does he have access to the legal system with our tax dollar? Why is she not entitled to the same resources?”

Golding said she doesn’t dwell on what happened.

“I’ve got too much going on in my life. These guys are little. I’ve got work, a house to take care of, homework to look over.”

On the other hand, she is puzzled about what to do next.

“I had a lot of fight in me before, but between the money and the nagging of it, it’s draining. I’m tired of it. I want it to go away and it doesn’t. Why is he bothering me? Why is he allowed to?”