Judge responded on Wednesday, September 26, to paperwork Jim filed on Monday, September 24, claiming he was contacted by Rossi and her longtime boyfriend, Slade Smiley, to testify against Judge and Beador.
However, Judge and her attorneys responded and said Rossi and Smiley’s testimonies would be irrelevant to the case, calling the motion “foundationless” and “conclusory hearsay.”
“Alleged, unspecified testimony from two third party witnesses of alleged anger, hostility or ill-will is irrelevant to a determination of whether Plaintiffs are also likely to prevail on the malice requirement of their claims,” wrote Judge’s attorneys in the Sept. 26 affidavit obtained by Radar Online. “In short, Plaintiff’s request to list the statutory discovery stay to conduct broad, based on specified discovery on topics irrelevant to even the issue of malice is utterly without merit.”
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As previously reported, Jim filed paperwork on Monday, September 25, claiming he was contacted by Smiley, who told him he and Rossi want to help him in his lawsuit against Beador and Judge, according to court documents obtained by Us Weekly.
Jim said in the documents that Smiley told him the couple will “provide testimony regarding the anger, hostility and ill-will that Defendants harbor with respect to Bellino.”
Smiley also allegedly told Jim he and Rossi can provide evidence that “the Defendants have a pattern of making up stories to create notoriety for themselves in the media,” per court documents via the publication.
But Rossi took to Instagram to address and clarify why she and her fiancé Slade Smiley have been asked to testify against Judge and Beador in Bellino's lawsuit. "I hate to even have to address this, but unfortunately many articles are being written with incorrect information regarding our involvement in Jim Bellino’s court case, so my intent is to clear it up here," she wrote.
While multiple media outlets reported that Rossi and Smiley were the ones who contacted Bellino, Rossi claims it was the other way around.
"First of all Slade and I were contacted by Jim, not the other way around. Even though we had not spoken to him since the show many yrs ago, we had no bad blood with him. He knew we had been in a similar case for years and had won a judgment against the individual who perpetuated those lies against us."
"He also asked if we would come in and testify against Tamra. We made it very clear we had no intention of voluntarily testifying against her and did not want to be involved. Since then his attorney has requested the court to lift the discovery hold so they can subpoena us and others in order to force our testimony. If the court allows this then we would no longer have a choice to be involved or not, even if it’s against our will (which is the whole point behind why lawyers issue subpoenas)"
Rossi continued: "For those that are sending me messages saying I can just plead the fifth, that is not how it works in this situation. You can only plead the fifth for self-incrimination. For those that say I should just not show up, that’s not how it works either. When a subpoena is issued it becomes a court order from the Judge and if I don’t show up I could be held in contempt of court. So please stop making assumptions about things you do not know and ignorant statements."
Jim lawsuit comes after Tamra and Shannon appeared on Heather McDonald’s live Juicy Scoop podcast in June. “He was very crusty … I almost sent her a message saying, ‘I’m so sorry,’ but then you sent me that text saying, ‘Do you think that he’s trying to protect her? Do you think that he’s in trouble and she can’t testify against him if he’s in trouble?” Judge said at the time.
Multiple blogs reported that Judge said her “theory” was Jim is “going to jail.” Meanwhile, Beador reportedly claimed “people get paralyzed” at his trampoline park business and the estranged couple “got sued” because of it, according to Us Weekly.
Jim filed for divorce from Alexis after 13 years of marriage on June 21, citing irreconcilable differences. They are parents of son James and twin daughters Melania and Mackenna. The former couple broke their silence on their split in a joint statement:
“Outside of the news of our decision to part ways, there is nothing provocative, alluring, or sordid about the dissolution of our marriage. Quite to the contrary, we strongly support each other just as we have since the beginning of our relationship.”
Photo Credit: Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images; Greg Doherty/Getty Images; Steven Lawton/FilmMagic
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