LOS ANGELES – Outgoing Rep. Katie Porter is seeking a temporary restraining order against an ex-boyfriend, telling the court that his “ongoing abuse and harassment,” including sending her and her family and staff more than 1,000 text messages and emails in three months , has “caused significant anxiety about [her] personal safety and well-being.”
In a petition for a domestic violence restraining order filed Tuesday in Orange County Superior Court, Porter alleged that Julian Willis, her romantic partner of several years, sent a litany of abusive messages intended to cause “significant damage” to her public image to cause. .
Among the messages detailed in the filing are threats to call Child Protective Services to remove her children from her custody, attempts to extort thousands of dollars from her and “defamatory” false accusations, including that she had genital herpes. (Porter has submitted test results to the court to prove she does not have that sexually transmitted disease.)
Porter said in her statement that Willis is dealing with substance abuse and mental health issues, which have led to Willis undergoing two involuntary psychiatric hospitalizations since 2022.
Porter said Willis has taken steps to address these issues, including attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings and staying in a sober living home in the spring of 2023. But she has personally witnessed him continue to abuse resources, she said in the lawsuits.
“I watched him abuse prescription painkillers, snort Ritalin, and abuse cannabis and nicotine patches,” she wrote. “He has also previously disclosed to me his use of cocaine and nitrous oxide (‘whippets’).”
Willis, 55, told POLITICO in a telephone interview Tuesday that Porter sought a restraining order to stop him from suing her and seeking protection for himself and her children — and to prevent him from going to the media .
“This is her way of combating all that,” Willis said. He said he has been sober for more than three years, but copies of text messages filed with the court, along with Porter’s statement, reportedly show him admitting substance abuse and returning to sobriety in 2022.
He provided copies of communications with University of California Irvine police alleging she was “aggressive” and “violent” toward him and her children in mid-August. He asked the police to monitor his move in that communication. Porter said through a spokesperson that she was out of state the day Willis left and received no indication from Willis or her neighbors that police were present. POLITICO independently requested copies of these reports from UC Irvine.
“She’s a monster,” Willis added.
The filing comes in the final days of Porter’s final term in the House of Representatives, after she ran unsuccessfully for the Senate this year. The Democrat, who rose to national fame as a crusader against corporate power, will return to her post as a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, in January.
But Porter, 50, has remained firmly in the public eye, including actively campaigning for fellow Democrats in November and positioning himself to run for governor in 2026, when Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, is recalled.
Her potential return to political life looms large in Porter’s statement.
“He has already contacted at least three reporters to spread false and damaging information about me and my children. As a prominent political figure, this threat poses a serious risk to my career and personal reputation,” she wrote in the statement.
Porter said she told Willis to leave her home at the end of August and stop contacting her, even threatening court intervention to force him to leave. He moved on Aug. 23 but continued to send dozens of messages a day, according to legal documents. Willis said his goal was to force her into “long-term psychiatric treatment” and threatened to “punish the hell out of you,” she said in the statement.
“If you don’t quite understand what’s happening right now, let me spell it out for you. The noose is tightening around Katie’s neck,” Willis wrote in an email to Porter’s son and ex-husband on Monday, which he then forwarded to her attorney, according to the documents. He declared that he would “take the hammer to Katie and smash her and her life into a million pieces.”
Porter included that email and copies of dozens of other texts and emails in a 22-page document accompanying her statement. The messages include simultaneous mentions of Willis’ hospitalizations and outreach from colleagues, including at least one member of Congress, who report receiving disturbing messages from Willis.
Willis’ reach extended to Senator Elizabeth Warren and her husband. Warren was Porter’s mentor at Harvard, and Willis requested to speak to the senator about the situation, according to court evidence and other documentation.
Porter asked a judge to issue a no-contact and stay-away order, requiring Willis to keep at least 100 yards away from her home, workplace and children’s schools. She also requested a restraining order against her three children, whose ages range from 12 to 18, and her 78-year-old mother.
Porter also said Willis has contacted “dozens” of current and former colleagues who say they find the messages “disturbing,” “threatening” or “offensive,” and cited 15 colleagues or family members who asked Willis not to follow the order to follow. to communicate with.
“This is a very unfortunate situation,” Porter said in a statement to POLITICO. Willis suffers from well-documented mental health and substance abuse issues. As evidenced by the documents filed today, these problems have continued to worsen since I ended the relationship and asked him to leave my home. In recent weeks, his threats against my family and my colleagues have escalated in both frequency and intensity, and I feel I must seek this order from the court. I sincerely hope he can get the help he needs.”
Willis previously made headlines in July 2021 after he was involved in a violent scuffle at a Porter town hall in Irvine, which was disrupted by far-right protesters. Willis was arrested and issued a summons before being released. Porter later had harsh words for the Irvine Police Department’s response, calling the force “a disgrace” in a leaked text exchange between her and the city’s mayor.
Porter’s personal life has been subject to public scrutiny before. She proactively released documents from her divorce from ex-husband Matthew Hoffman to the Huffington Post after a whisper campaign about the end of her marriage threatened to disrupt her first House run in 2018.
Porter filed a restraining order against Hoffman in 2013 after he allegedly punched a wall next to her, shattering a light switch plate. He then filed a restraining order, alleging that Porter had also been verbally and physically abusive. (One accusation, that she dumped a bowl of boiling potatoes on his head, received a lot of media attention during this year’s Senate race.)
In her 2023 memoir, Porter wrote about her internal conflict over declaring the end of her marriage. Although she saw it as a political necessity, her children had difficulty making public the details of the end of her message. She said her decision was “the only thing I’ve done in politics that I’m ashamed of.”
“Being a real person and living a real life is in fundamental conflict with American politics. There is no way I could have maintained my privacy about domestic violence in my family and gotten elected. There were real costs to telling my story, and even though I pretended otherwise, I knew I was making a choice between my children and my campaign.”
Emily Schultheis contributed to this report.
