This week on Legally Us, Rachael Bennett, a certified family law specialist and senior attorney at Sullivan Law & Associates, breaks down Tom Sandoval’s request for a domestic violence restraining order against Victoria and her father, J. Will Robinson.
On Thursday, June 24, Sandoval, 44, filed for a domestic violence restraining order against Victoria and her father, alleging they subjected him to verbal and physical abuse during a confrontation on June 3.
In a lengthy court declaration, the Bravo alum claimed that Will assaulted him. He also alleged that Victoria, 33, struck him in the face during a heated dispute over whether she was recording him without his permission.
A video later surfaced and appeared to show Sandoval shoving Will into a lit fire pit before retreating into the home, with Will following behind.
On Friday, June 27, Will filed his own request for a restraining order against Sandoval, claiming he sustained a ruptured disc in his back, a broken thumb and elbow, and a wound on his heel. The court initially denied the request, ruling that it required “more information at a properly noticed hearing” before making a final decision.
“When we see dueling restraining order requests that are going to center around the same incident, the main thing the court’s going to really have to determine is who was the dominant aggressor in the situation? The strongest evidence is going to be that video, because it really can cut through a lot of the he said, she said,” Bennett tells Us. “But even video doesn’t always tell the full story, and the judge is going to want to know what happened before the video started, what happened after it ended and whether the video shows the entire confrontation or only one piece of it.”
According to court documents obtained by Us, on the night of June 3, Sandoval wrote that Will “put his face in the hole in the door and smiled telling me he will ‘f***’ me up, ‘destroy’ me and called me a ‘motherf***er.’” Police arrived and arrested Victoria, with Sandoval acknowledging that he helped bail her out of jail.
He wrote, “Ms. Robinson was arrested when it became clear that she had attacked me. As I saw her being arrested, in the heat of the moment, I asked the police officers the process by which she could be bailed out. I even foolishly accepted Ms. Robinson’s phone call from jail and lent her mother financial assistance for the bail. In hindsight, I deeply regret that decision.”
Sandoval also accused the Robinsons of ongoing physical and emotional abuse, alleging that Victoria tampered with his devices and placed a GPS tracker on his car.
“If there’s already a temporary restraining order in place that keeps the parties away from each other, a judge may decide that another emergency order isn’t necessary because both sides can already come into court and present a full picture of the case at a later time without having to issue duplicative orders. Temporary orders are decided very quickly and with limited time and information. Even when a temporary order is denied, it really doesn’t mean that the case is dead in the water,” Bennett explains. “A judge may deny emergency protection at the very beginning because maybe they don’t have enough information yet, but they can always later grant a restraining order after hearing all the evidence, and I’ve seen the reverse happen too. A temporary order may be granted up front, but then ultimately dissolved after the court gets the full context.”
Read the full article here
