SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Taylor Frankie Paul, a star of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives " and a recently scrubbed season of “The Bachelorette,” will not be charged in recent fights with her former partner, the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office said Tuesday.
Police in the Salt Lake City suburbs of Draper City and West Jordan have been investigating claims of domestic violence from 2024 and this February from Paul's ex-partner Dakota Mortensen,
the father of her 2-year-old son. Paul has also made allegations against Mortensen, but those were not addressed in the documents.
Any new charges against Paul would have violated her probation, which stemmed from a 2023 assault on Mortensen.
The pair has filed dueling petitions for protective orders against one another that will be the subject of an upcoming hearing.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of domestic violence. If you or someone you know needs help, please call the national domestic violence hotline: 1-800-799-7233 in the U.S.
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“Several incidents that were submitted do not rise to the level of criminal offenses. The remaining incidents lack sufficient evidence to support filing criminal charges,” Breanne Miller, a lawyer in the district attorney's Family Protection Unit, wrote in a memo explaining that Paul would not be charged.
She noted that some reported incidents occurred more than three years ago and fell outside the legal time frame for review.
The decline in charges does not have a direct effect on Mortensen’s protective order against Paul, which has been temporarily granted and could become long-term at an April 30 hearing. But the lack of prosecution could help Paul and her lawyers make her case to a court commissioner who at an earlier hearing ordered that she could have visits with her son only if they were supervised.
Eric Swinyard, a lawyer for Paul, argued at an April 7 hearing that Mortensen was the aggressor in a February fight that the lawyer called “the truck tussle.”
Mortensen said in his request for a protective order that Paul threw a drink at him as they argued in a truck to not wake children who were sleeping inside Paul’s home. But Swinyard said Mortensen slammed Paul’s head into the dashboard and punched her in the leg, and provided photos she took of her bruises.
A different fight between the couple in 2023 prompted ABC to make the unprecedented move of shelving an already-filmed season of “The Bachelorette” after video of the altercation leaked last month.
In the video, Paul appeared to punch, kick and throw chairs at Mortensen while her young daughter watched and cried. Paul was charged with aggravated assault and other offenses, including domestic violence in the presence of a child. She pleaded guilty to an assault charge, which will be reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor if Paul stays out of legal trouble for a three-year probationary period that ends in August. The other counts were dismissed.
Eleven fights between Paul and Mortensen were under examination in their protective order requests.
A court-appointed attorney for their son, Ever, said another video from May of last year shows Paul pushing Mortensen and shouting at him to get out of her house while he is holding the boy. The lawyer, Michael McDonald, said at the April 7 hearing, “that makes me very nervous about her ability to control herself.”
Paul’s attorney said Mortensen deliberately created the situation by holding their child as a “human shield.” Mortensen's attorney, Daniela Diaz, argued that Paul uses their son “as a pawn to start fights.”
The couple’s fiery relationship was heavily featured on “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” from its 2024 debut, and it was central to Paul becoming a reality star. The series premiere featured police body camera footage of her 2023 arrest.
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Dalton reported from Los Angeles.
