Real-estate magnate Richard Cohen, the estranged husband of longtime network news anchor Paula Zahn, is being accused by former Miss USA Julie Hayek of meeting women on dating site Match.com under the name Flyboyny5987 — and then coldly dumping them.
Following his public split with the TV personality who left him for Cohen’s billionaire friend Paul Fribourg after 20 years of marriage, Cohen has returned to the dating scene with a vengeance.
Hayek says she had a whirlwind romance with Cohen that included trips to Argentina and plans for New Year’s on Anguilla, before he abruptly dumped her. She told us, “I think he wants to get back at Paula.”
Hayek says Cohen told her on their first date in October, “ ‘You better go home and call your mom tonight, and tell her you’ve met the man you’re going to marry.’ ”
But Hayek claims Cohen never returned her calls shortly after the “Autism Speaks” gala at The Plaza on Dec. 5, and adds that the next day, he was logged onto the dating Web site for hours.
Hayek says, “It is disappointing . . . It’s very hurtful. He’s going to do the same thing to these other ladies . . . He’s so addicted to Match.com.”
Cohen also met interior designer Nanjoo Joung on the site earlier this year, and even commissioned her to design his Cape Cod property, but dropped her for Hayek after two months, Joung says.
Joung told us, “He said, ‘I’ll never let you go, you’re the one.’ The next day he disappeared.”
In a letter she wrote to Cohen and seen by Page Six, Joung said, “Using the social-media site to fool around . . . It is so apparent that you are the country hick and dork living a wealthy lifestyle.”
Cohen is spending the holidays with Zahn and their children, and could not be reached.