HARRISBURG—A spat between the adult children of two of Harrisburg’s best-known judicial families grew heated after a late-May incident that sent one of them to the hospital, then prompted a petition for OP and rebuttal in response.
While it remains unclear exactly why Appellate Judge Bruce Stewart’s daughter Christine (Christy) Stewart became so ill on Thursday, May 30, at her home that an ambulance had to be called for her (reports of an overdose on some drug or medication went unconfirmed as of press time), that’s exactly what happened.
And later that day, it was reported that her family was searching for a judge in the First Judicial Circuit who would be willing to hear a petition for an Order of Protection, and grant it, against one of Judge Stewart’s employees, Jesse Nelson, former boyfriend of Christy Stewart and the son of another long-time judge, David Nelson, who at the time was working for Judge Stewart.
Ambulance responds
The matter came to the attention of Disclosure when it was reported that an ambulance had responded to the 200 block of East Locust in Harrisburg that Thursday afternoon, and Stewart, 25, had been toted out on a stretcher.
Sources close to the situation have advised that Nelson, 37, had not been in the house that day, and Disclosure later learned that he was at work.
Reports that some kind of fight or argument preceded the collapse of Stewart, prompting the call to 911 (who called is unclear) proved to later be unsubstantiated.
However, the veracity of the OP Stewart was able to get issued against Nelson proved to be true.
Not your average OP prose
In her petition, Stewart, who has most recently come into a job working for Representative Brandon Phelps (after losing a job with the Harrisburg newspaper last November, after she fell asleep on the floor of the courthouse while covering election returns), noted that Nelson was her former boyfriend, and made several inflammatory allegations against him, in prose much cleaner and literate than the average OP-requestor:
“I started dating Jesse Nelson in the Summer of 2012,” she stated in a typed-out petition. Though he is quite a bit older than I am, I thought I knew him and could feel safe with him due to our families’ long histories. He moved in with me in the Fall. After several months of living together, sick of the constant fighting and verbal abuse, I asked him to move out.
“This led to an increase in both the severity and frequency of our arguments, but it took some time before he finally finished moving out of my house. During this time, the police were called on several occasions. Jesse often became angry, making him loud and scary. I was awakened several times to the sound of Jesse pounding on my front door and yelling through my windows. My neighbors have even called me over to warn me about the possibility that I have a stalker. During any period of time in which I do not respond to him, he begins harassing me with a barrage of emails, text messages and phone calls. Recently, I have received text messages from him that say things like, ‘I don’t understand how you could possibly think that ignoring me will have a different result than when you did it in the past. As you know, all it does is make me ore determined to talk to you.’”
No attachments
Even though she referenced them, Stewart failed to attach to her petition anything that would serve as evidence of her next allegation:
“Every day I ignore several dozen calls from a variety of phone numbers and receive an equal number of text messages and emails from a long list of phone numbers and email addresses. It is impossible to block all of these numbers, which grow in number every day thanks to free voice and messaging applications accessible to just about anyone.
“In addition, Jesse has threatened to ‘exact vengeance’ upon me, especially if he is fired from his position as an Appellate Clerk by my father. He has directly sent me copies or otherwise made me aware of several pictures and videos he took, and may have in some way distributed pictures of me nude or partially nude. He has used my knowledge that he has access to these photos as a bargaining tool to either convince me to give in and talk to him or not to seek legal help.
“Specifically, he has threatened to do something to hurt my new job working for State Representative Brandon Phelps, or to physically harm my male friends. I have spent many nights lying awake, scared of what he might do.”
Wants no disclosure
Stewart’s requests further into the document seek remedy in the form of “refrain(ing) from any disclosure to third parties of any and all photos and videos of petitioner” and “refrain(ing) from calling, texting and/or emailing petitioner.”
For whatever reason, Stewart believed it necessary to include in the petition Nelson’s limited criminal history, which amounts to more arrests than actual convictions, and all of it from 1999: Misdemeanor Knowingly Damaging Property, Criminal Trespass to Land and two DUIs as regards convictions; and arrests for separate counts of Criminal Trespass, multiple Disorderly Conduct, three counts of Hate Crime, Knowingly Damaging Property, and one count of Resisting a Peace Officer, all of which were dismissed.
Stewart, unlike most OP petitioners, was represented at the emergency OP hearing by Howerton, Dorris and Stone attorneys in Marion.
The OP was granted by Judge Joseph Jay Jackson, in Saline County circuit court on the day it was petitioned, May 30.
Files response
A week later, it was Nelson’s turn.
On Friday, June 7, Nelson filed a response.
“My work address as stated on page 1 of the petition is no longer correct,” Nelson wrote, “as petitioner Christine Stewart’s father, Justice of the Appellate Court of Illinois The Honorable Bruce D. Stewart (my then-employer), was at the time the petition was filed in the process of orchestrating my termination, ostensibly for work-related efficiencies, after having previously assured me the ‘short of physical violence’ my relationship with the petitioner would have no impact on my employment.”
Notably missing from Stewart’s petition for OP, unlike most other OPs throughout the state, was any allegation of any physical violence or brutality in any form.
His second paragraph states “I do not intend to initiate any contact with the petitioner, but I do not doubt, based on her prior history, that she will attempt to initiate contact with me, if for no other reason than to cause my arrest for violating any order of protection unless such an order is also entered against her.”
Knows his First Amendment rights
“I do not intend to disseminate any pictures or videos of the petitioner,” Nelson wrote in his third paragraph, “but any order placing a prior restraint upon my freedom to disseminate any documents, pictures, videos, or other communications would violate my First Amendment rights, and I therefore object to the entry of such an order in this order of protection proceeding.”
In his final paragraph, Nelson states, “The petitioner neglected to note in her petition that she has repeatedly contacted me in recent weeks, including on May 21, 2014, or just more than one week prior to the filing of her petition, at which time she urged me to call in sick to work, which I refused to do, and asked if she could, after she felt that she looked sufficiently ‘sexy and delicious,’ stay the night at my house, to which I acceded, thus casting serious doubt on her claim that she is frightened of me and has been since before I moved out of her house in March.
“For the foregoing reasons,” Nelson concluded, he “respectfully requests that this Honorable Court dismiss this case.”
Loose ends
Nelson, like Stewart, is represented by council in his matter: Steve Stone.
The cause is set for a Plenary (two year/permanent) hearing on June 20.
It’s anticipated that at that time, the filing by Nelson will be taken up first, and, if the judge finds that his more reasonable petition has more weight than Stewart’s rather scattered one, the whole matter may be dropped—unless in the interim, Stewart decides she’s “sufficiently sexy and delicious” and wants to get back with her former live-in.