A misfired e-mail has led a Brazilian anchorman into a bitter custody battle with his ex-wife, a New York model he accuses of conning a judge into letting her kidnap their daughter, the New York Daily News reports.

Rony Curvelo, 45, said he accidently sent to his ex, Maria Vianna, an e-mail that was meant for his news producer back in Sao Paulo asking whether he should go to Haiti to cover the earthquake, the Daily News says..

Vianna, 29, fearing Curvelo was planning to take 8-year-old Jennifer, who was in New York visiting her mom, with him, took the e-mail to a Manhattan Family Court Judge. who granted temporary custody of the child  to Vianna, who lives on the East Side.

In her court petition, the Daily News says, Vianna asserted that Curvelo planned the Haiti trip without having Jennifer vaccinated, that he wasn’t making her tuition payments, wasn’t providing her with a Catholic education and was planning to abduct her.

"I wasn’t going to Haiti and I’m not going to Haiti. The whole thing is lies for a legal kidnapping, and so far it’s working," the Daily News quoted Curvelo as saying.

"I was shocked, stunned. I was at Kennedy Airport Thursday, waiting for Jennifer so we could go back to Brazil, when a process server gave me papers," Curvelo continued.

Curvelo, who says he has full custody of the fourth-grader, and Jennifer live near Sao Paulo, but the child visits her mother in Manhattan twice a year, the Daily News says.

— Tom Gilbert