Bethenny Frankel’s ex husband, Jason Hoppy, with whom she’s been embroiled in a bitter custody battle over their daughter Bryn, six, was arrested and charged with harassing and stalking her. Bethenny and Jason’s divorce lasted longer than their marriage of two years, and dragged on from 2012 until it was finalized in 2016. Their divorce took almost double the amount of time they were married and it got ugly and complicated. Jason refused to move out of their home in New York, Bethenny refused to move too and they did a lot of passive aggressive sh-t to each other. According to reports Jason showed up at Bryn’s school and made threats to Bethenny. Bethenny reported it to police, after which Jason was arrested at his home, charged and releases. She later obtained a restraining order against Jason. It’s unclear at this point if the custody arrangement will be affected, but it sounds like this situation will be taken into consideration at a future hearing.
Bethenny Frankel’s ex-husband Jason Hoppy has been arrested for stalking the “Real Housewives of New York” star after allegedly turning up at their 6-year-old daughter’s school and yelling, “I will destroy you.”
Hoppy was charged with harassing and stalking Frankel after he allegedly sent a series of abusive emails, then turned up at their daughter Bryn’s Manhattan school on Friday to allegedly threaten his ex.
An NYPD spokeswoman confirmed the allegations to Page Six: “The complainant said Hoppy had sent numerous emails and FaceTime calls numbering in the hundreds after a cease and desist letter was sent on November 22, 2016.
“On Friday, January 27, the suspect approached her and a friend at her child’s school at around 8:15 a.m. and tried to provoke a fight. He said, ‘I will destroy you, you can get all the lawyers you want, you’ve been warned.’”
Hoppy denies the charges.
He was arrested hours later and charged with aggravated harassment in the first degree, harassment in the second degree and stalking in the fourth degree, the NYPD spokeswoman added.
Hoppy and Frankel, both 46, were married for two years until 2012 and became embroiled in a vicious, drawn-out divorce and custody battle over their daughter. “I have cried enough tears to fill the Hudson River,” Frankel said last year. “I’d think, how could this go on for so long? Four years on a two-year marriage!”
They were forced to share the same Tribeca apartment for some time post-split, which she described as “brutal, horrendous, excruciating.”
It reported last year that Frankel and her most recent boyfriend, Dennis Shields, had been on the receiving end of a torrent of vicious emails allegedly written by Hoppy.
Shields, who had been dating Frankel for a year, sent a legal letter to Hoppy accusing him of sending dozens of emails with “increasing frequency and hostility,” TMZ reported, adding that Hoppy accused Frankel of being “ugly, old and irrelevant” and said Shields is just part of a “revolving door of men” and that “he’ll be gone soon.”
Hoppy’s divorce attorney Bernard Clair declined to comment.
Hoppy’s attorney Robert C. Gottlieb said, “There are no words to express how saddened Mr. Hoppy is over his ex-wife’s unjustified actions. His only concern is his daughter and intends to vigorously fight these false charges.”
But Frankel’s lawyer Barry Zone said she had undergone, “Years of systematic bullying, harassment, stalking and torment on an almost daily basis. Indeed, Mr. Hoppy has sent hundreds of escalating texts and emails to Ms. Frankel, her assistants and her boyfriend,…stating that “I’ll never go away” and that “[y]ou left me no choice but to go to extremes”…requesting copies of her life insurance policy, and telling her that “I’ll pray for you”.
These acts of mental and psychological abuse are domestic violence, pure and simple. No woman, celebrity or not, deserves to have their allegations of such abuse taken lightly, and we are grateful to the NYPD for their immediate action to protect Ms. Frankel.”
Do I think Bethenny is capable of fabricating these claims or exaggerating them to get back at Jason? Yes. Some of these reports are very one-sided and Page Six quotes an anonymous alleged police source who claims that this seems like a revenge report. These two have spent a lot of time and energy fighting through the courts. However it’s also entirely possible that Jason is threatening and harassing Bethenny and that he’s done most or all of the things her lawyer is accusing him of. Both of these people could be awful and vindictive people and that doesn’t exonerate one of them from the crime of harassing and threatening the other. It’s also possible that the truth is somewhere in the middle. I’m not going to come down on either side at this point because I’m skeptical and there’s not enough information. If you read some of our past coverage on this former couple you will see why I am hesitant to side with either party. They have both done a lot to sabotage each other and their respective relationships with their daughter, which doesn’t excuse or explain Jason’s behavior, if it’s being accurately represented. Oh and People reports that a judge issued a restraining order against Jason at his arraignment.
photos credit: WENN and Fame
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