Sarah Hornbeck employs the silver bullet technique...AGAIN
Her claim is ludicrous, however, ludicrous is often enough for a protective order.
Jeff Reichert may be feeling like he is experiencing the horror version of the movie Groundhog Day today.
On July 9, 2020, Sarah Hornbeck asked for a protective order, and to switch custody of their son, by falsely claiming that Jeff stuck a gun to her head while she was pregnant.
Jeff insisted the allegation was false, however, more than that, the allegation, even if true, would have been a decade old at the time she made it.
Their son was ten at the time.
A protective order, when done properly, is to protect from a clear and PRESENT danger.
A decade old allegation wouldn’t fit.
No matter, Sarah, along with her attorney Brennan McCarthy, went to court and filed for one. Jeff and I discussed this chain of events in our first interview below.
I emailed Sarah and her attorney, but neither responded.
Eventually, a Maryland judge, rather than dismissing the case, granted protective orders on to Jeff and Sarah against each other. Sarah then filed reports alleging that Jeff violated the protective order. In total, he spent nineteen days in jail, before all charges were dropped.
Sarah had effectively used the silver bullet technique, the false or frivolous claim of abuse to gain a protective order which is then used as leverage in a divorce or custody case. The technique is so common that a Texas assistant prosecutor was caught on video instructing divorce lawyers on how to best use it.
{The assistant prosecutor comes on about forty-five seconds in}
Sarah is at it again.
Jeff hasn’t seen his son, even over video, in months, and he hasn’t spent time with him face to face in over two years.
He has no contact with Sarah, except for communication over Our Family Wizard, an app for parents to use during custody.
That didn’t stop Sarah from going to a Baltimore County, Maryland court to file for a protective order earlier this month. Her allegation was nearly as ludicrous as the one in 2020.
Sarah claimed that “on or about 9/26/24” Jeff, on social media, stated he was “coming to get her.”
She also said that this statement was combined with prior, but unnamed, abuse.
Jeff’s Facebook page has nothing on September 26, and no posts before or after which could reasonable be considered threatening. Below are his last three posts: two from September 20 and one from July.
Jeff and I did an interview on September 20, 2024, but at no point did he ever say anything like “{I’m} coming to get her.”
Despite that, a Baltimore County Judge named Michael Pate, granted the protective order to Sarah, ex-parte.
Here is Sarah’s full statement.
Sarah provided irrelevant but inflammatory details about their custody case, but she did not provide any evidence of stalking, abuse, or of this so-called statement, “I’m coming to get her.”
The venue, judge, and timing are all suspicious.
First, a lesson on protective orders. A protective order is initially granted ex-parte, almost always. This means that only the party who wants protection {Sarah} is there to present evidence. This makes this part of the process nearly a rubber stamp. With no one challenging evidence, it’s easy to present enough to get it granted.
At that point, there is a temporary protective order, until a hearing is called. At that hearing, both sides present evidence.
Even though there was no one to challenge Sarah’s evidence, it’s shameful that Judge Pate granted it to her, even on a temporary basis.
This allegation is made up whole cloth, by someone with a history of false allegations.
Furthermore, Jeff went to the same Judge Pate for a protective order in September 2024.
Jeff argued that since his son was being kept away from him, in violation of a court order, this amounted to abuse.
Judge Pate, Jeff told me, denied the protective order, arguing that since Jeff didn’t know where his son was, he couldn’t know if he was being abused.
Simply being kept away from your father for months for no reason was not enough.
Sarah asked that their son be included on this protective order, which Judge Pate granted for her.
Second, most of the malfeasance in this case has occurred in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, as Wayne Dolcefino described in his 2022 report.
Finally, Jeff told me that days prior to Judge Pate granting Sarah her protective order, Jeff discovered, independently, where his son was going to school.
Sarah was keeping this information from Jeff, also in violation of a court order. Here is part of an email McCarthy sent to Jeff’s attorney, explaining why they are withholding that information.
Will he go totally psycho and harass the school Grant attends? Because that is what he did last time, harassing an educational provider with your assistance. It was repulsive, beneath the dignity of a professional.
We do not need to play the blame game. My client just wants to know whether your client will continue his harassing behavior and let the school do its job without your client interfering and bringing frivolous claims against the school.
Please have your client affirm he will not harass the school in which case I will recommend sharing that information. At this time and because of your client’s past behavior, I am not authorized to share that information.
Jeff never harassed anyone, but rather, he attempted to depose a school employee who told him privately about abuse his son was experiencing.
More to the point, the timing of Sarah’s protective order seemed to be to strategically to respond to Jeff finding out where his son was going to school.
With a temporary order in place, Jeff can’t contact him or the school.
This is all just a legal appetizer. The main legal course is the protective order hearing which took place today.
Jeff did not attend, but his lawyers along with a court watcher, Kurt Mueller.
I spoke with Kurt to get the details.
As Kurt explained, there was a big letdown. Jeff wasn’t properly served. Sarah tried to serve him through Our Family Wizard, but that didn’t count.
As such, the case was continued.
His lawyers were there, but they couldn’t accept service. The next hearing is scheduled for October 28, but Jeff still needs to be served.
If the last three paragraphs confused you, they confused me also.
Be sure to listen to the last fifteen minutes of the interview with Kurt. He described his own run with the silver bullet technique. Despite receiving video evidence of his ex-wife, a cop and a judge, scheming to have him arrested and get a false protective order, he hasn’t seen his children since 2022.
Welcome to the club. There's no punch amd pie or esxape. You were born with a penis