By MONICA MORALES wpix.com

5:01 a.m. EDT, April 27, 2010
NEW YORK (WPIX)—
A Staten Island woman who called off her wedding and refused to return a $17,500 engagement ring is vowing to battle for the bling in court.

"I didn't do anything wrong," Colette Dipierro, 28, said in an exclusive interview with PIX 11's Monica Morales, explaining that she received the ring on her birthday in May and considers it a gift that doesn't have to be returned.

Dipierro has turned defiant in the face of a lawsuit filed by her ex-fiance Christopher Reinhold, 25, who said in court papers he gave her the ring "in contemplation and consideration of marriage."

While the couple was engaged for only four months, Dipierro says there was more to the relationship, pointing out that she met Reinhold in 2007 and lived with him, and paid rent and expenses.

"I thought I was going to marry him," she says of the early days. "This was a fairy tale." But Dipierro admits she had doubts by the time he popped the question. "Society puts a lot of pressure on women to get married at a certain age."

Dipierro confesses that she felt the pressure before Reinhold entered her life. "I was engaged before," she tells PIX 11. But that relationship ended quite differently. "I gave back the ring," she says. "We are still friends."

PIX 11 contacted Reinhold's attorney for this story. He did not want to comment.