Below are the overlapping dates between court documents filed and hearings held for Mr. Roberts and me, all of which are full of accusations by both sides. Through it all, I was able to refute Mr. Roberts' accusations. However, he could not do the same. In addition, he made serious allegations of animal abuse but then contradicted himself and said he had no problem with my coming and picking up my bunnies.
• 8/18/2021 Freeman filed for DVRO
• 8/20/2021 Roberts was served with DVRO
• 10/13/2021 Hearing for Freeman DVRO
• 10/13/2021 Roberts response to DVRO
• 10/13/2021 Roberts filed for a divorce
• 11/12/2021 Freeman filed ex parte for emergency spousal support and custody of the rabbits
•11/30/21 Roberts filed for a DVRO against me (with five continuances)
• 12/3/2021 Ex parte hearing
• 12/12/2021 Freeman served with Roberts DVRO
• 1/31/2022 Freeman Response to DVRO
• 11/2/2022 Freeman filed for Contempt of Court
ACCUSATION FILED ON 10/13/2021 IN ROBERTS RESPONSE TO FREEMAN DVRO:
Falling-down Drunk
I stated in my DVRO against Mr. Roberts that he came home 'falling-down drunk' with his assistant on July 27, 2021. Mr. Roberts denied the accusation as follows:
“…all that happened on that date was that my colleague gave me a ride home at my request since I had a few alcoholic beverages. After I entered the house, and the door was closed, Wife went outside and chased my colleague, yelling at her aggressively. Again, even if I conceded to, what Wife describes is in no way an incident of abuse toward her, although it certainly is one of abuse by her.”
Reality Check:
The following section summarizes the events captured by the surveillance video featuring Mr. Roberts and his assistant, Michelle, on 7/27/21, when Mr. Roberts came home, falling-down drunk.
• Mr. Roberts and his assistant, Michelle, pull up in front of the house. Michelle is driving her SUV, and Mr. Roberts is in the front passenger seat. After some time passes, Mr. Roberts is either passed out or too intoxicated to get out of the car by himself.
• Finally, Michelle gets out to help him. She opens his door and reaches across him to unbuckle his seat belt. She does not call me for help or let me know what’s going on.
• Mr. Roberts gets out and wraps his arms around her from behind to steady himself. They both fall to the ground. He lies on the ground motionless.
• Michelle gets up, walks around him, and starts coaching him to get up. Mr. Roberts finally gets up, and they walk arm-in-arm as he fumbles with his phone to unlock the front door remotely.
• He stops, and while teetering, tries again to unlock the door remotely but can only manage to fumble with his phone.
• He fails to unlock the door, puts his phone in his pocket, and motions to Michelle to start walking again. They approach the front steps where the wheelchair ramp is. They pause as he continues to teeter back and forth. Michelle is trying to hold him up as they stand there arm-in-arm.
• They finally make it up the wheelchair ramp, and he almost runs into the door headfirst. She props him up, yet they do not ring the doorbell, even though it’s right there.
• They still have their arms around each other and are both hunched over with their heads bowed. Michelle continues to have her arm around his waist to steady him, and he keeps his arm around her shoulders.
• Several minutes pass. Michelle and Mr. Roberts are still hunched over. Finally, I open the door to see what’s going on. I help Mr. Roberts into the house and help him up the stairs, where he vomits in the hall bathroom.
• I then return to the front yard and collect his keys and wallet from Michelle, who meets me on the walkway and hands them to me. Mr. Roberts then goes to the master bedroom and falls to the floor, where he spends the night struggling to get up. Buttercup, our cat, hides in the closet because she’s too afraid to come out.
Mr. Roberts also claimed that I accused him of having an extramarital affair for months, which I never did. I believe this accusation was merely fantastical thinking on his part. Although I did give him a hard time when he came home smelling of perfume, which gave me a migraine.
ACCUSATION FILED ON 10/13/2021 IN ROBERTS RESPONSE TO FREEMAN DVRO:
Family Alienation
When Mr. Roberts and I began living together in 2011, I continually let him know how bizarre his behavior was, when he invited his family members over without saying anything to me, then would leave before they arrived.
I had always gone above and beyond to make Mr. Roberts’ family feel welcome and comfortable. All I asked in return was this one simple courtesy: to let me know when someone was coming over.
However, in his response, he stated the following:
“It is Wife who has consistently abused me emotionally, alienating me from my family, friends, colleagues, all of whom she systematically adamantly forbade me from inviting to my house.”
Reality Check:
No such incident ever occurred. If Mr. Roberts’ family or anyone else felt uncomfortable--which he accused me of causing--it was because of how Mr. Roberts treated them, including his sister Betty, whom he had repeatedly hung up on, but not without yelling “F**K YOU!” into the phone first. I not only observed this behavior multiple times; he also bragged about it to me.
I recognized how highly toxic this was, as well as the constant lying they did to each other, and sent Mr. Roberts an angry text about it, which he never responded to. If Mr. Roberts’ family felt alienated from me, it was because Mr. Roberts had instigated it.
The last time I reached out to anyone in Mr. Robert’s family was on July 29, 2021, while I was staying at a hotel to get away from him. Redmond, his eldest son, confirmed his father’s toxicity and wished me well
My relationship with Mr. Roberts included his middle son Aaron receiving an opportunity to work in IT at Free Clinics, Inc. in San Francisco. I began working there in 2003, and Mr. Roberts started working there in 2005. After he dumped me as his girlfriend for the fifth time, and his ex-wife Susie dropped him from her health care coverage—which was part of their divorce settlement—he tried to get it on his own but couldn’t. Given my nature, I added him to my Kaiser Permanente health care plan as a domestic partner.
After a period of time then-CEO of HAFCI, Derrick Island, was departing. Free Clinics, Inc. was about to permanently close due to malfeasance by the former CFO, and they were looking to fill the position with a consultant (“fixer”) for six months.
I spoke with Derrick about it, then with Mr. Roberts, who was underemployed at the time, and arranged a lunch meeting between the three of us at a restaurant on Lombard St. Mr. Roberts was then put in touch with the chair of the board of directors, Ethel Franklin, and it began from there. Ethel directed him to the search firm, and it turned out that Mr. Roberts and the owner of the search firm were friends. However, Mr. Roberts had not even been considered as a candidate by anyone there, but he razzle-dazzled the board and was hired.
When Mr. Roberts’ six-month assignment was nearing its end, he applied for and was hired to be the permanent CEO. Had I not already had time under my belt with organizational knowledge, Mr. Roberts never would have succeeded due to the management team doing all they could to sabotage him. Later, he maneuvered to have his middle son Aaron brought on board in IT.
My exit from Free Clinics, Inc. came about when I contacted the board of directors’ chair, Barry Olson, in 2010 because Mr. Roberts was emotionally and psychologically abusive toward me, as our time there was coming to an end due to the merger with another non-profit. I described to Barry how I wanted to be laid off and received a call the next day from Mr. Roberts, with a follow-up email on August 5, 2010, notifying me that he was laying me off with a generous severance package. (For years, Mr. Roberts said that he had fired me, never realizing I knew the truth.)
After Mr. Roberts was laid off, I subsequently provided medical coverage for him, his youngest son Ethan, and myself through my next employer, the American Lung Association in Oakland, and provided both Mr. Roberts and myself with coverage once again through the Family Caregiver Alliance in San Francisco.
Mr. Roberts had been grinding me down for years. But this is how it is for people like me: we attract people just like him to our own detriment.
Regardless, I have always sought to give my best and to bring about peace and tranquility in the home environment, only for my efforts to be thwarted.
I stood by Mr. Roberts throughout the grueling process of applying for the CEO position at Housing, Inc. Without his background at Free Clinics, Inc., he would not have been hired at Housing, Inc., nor would his son Aaron.
Obviously, I had always gone above and beyond to make Mr. Roberts’ family feel welcome and comfortable. All I asked in return was this one simple courtesy: to let me know when someone was coming over.
In no way at any time did I ever alienate Mr. Roberts’ family. Quite the opposite was true. As mentioned elsewhere, all I asked was to be notified ahead of time as a courtesy if someone was coming over. I continually encouraged Mr. Roberts’ family to celebrate birthdays and holidays with us, and everything in between, including Valentine’s Day, when we socially distanced due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I filled Christmas stockings and Easter baskets for their respective holidays.
ACCUSATION FILED ON 11/30/2021 IN MR. ROBERTS DVRO AGAINST ME: Career Sabotage
Mr. Roberts’ DVRO against me served as a gag order to silence me. I was ordered not to talk to anyone about him. In it, he accused me of contacting Shelly Bartow at Center Point, a major funding source for Housing, Inc., and anonymously informed her that I had a DVRO against him, thus sullying Mr. Roberts reputation and jeopardizing future grants for Housing, Inc.
Quoted from the DVRO:
“[…On October 4, I received an email from Shelly Bartow (“Shelly”), who is a Chief Program Officer for Center Point, a foundation that is one of the largest funders of Housing, Inc., my employer. In her email, Shelly stated that Center Point had received “an anonymous letter citing a domestic claim against [me],” and asking [me] to “discuss the letter and any implications its distribution may have for [me], and Housing, Inc.” While I have not reviewed that letter, or have specific knowledge of its contents, it is obvious to any reasonable person that said letter was likely sent to Center Point by Wife. Again, contacting such an important professional contact regarding a DVRO which although was temporarily granted pending the hearing thereon, Wife knew very well was frivolous, malicious and unmeritorious, cannot be intended as anything other than harassing me, inflicting emotional distress upon me, and/or getting me fired. As a collateral result, and as stated by Shelly, Wife’s aforementioned communications could have a negative impact on Housing, Inc.”
Reality Check:
No such attempt to contact anyone at Center Point was ever made by me. It didn’t occur to me to contact any funders, nor did I have access to that information.
I never found out who contacted Shelly Bartow at Center Pointe, but I did send an email to the Family Justice Center, with which I had prior contact. This time, I inquired as to who at their offices might have contacted Shelly Bartow, but I received no reply.
ACCUSATION FILED ON 1/31/2022 BY FREEMAN IN RESPONSE TO MR. ROBERTS’ DVRO
Suicide Comment
After the hearing on October 13, 2021, Mr. Roberts’ attorney, Mr. Conrad, contacted my attorney Ms. Mumford. Mr. Roberts was offering $1,000 a week in cash for me to stay at a hotel, above and beyond spousal support with no strings attached (as per my attorney Lisa Mumford), thus proving he knew I had the legal right to be in the marital home. However, there was no follow-through.
Upon returning to the marital home after the hearing where my DVRO was dismissed on October 13, 2021, Mr. Roberts disabled the bunny cams. Yet, at 11:54 a.m., he still unwittingly recorded himself and his son Aaron having the following conversation:
Aaron: “She can’t take care of herself, let alone her animals.”
Mr. Roberts: “Right, and then she’s gonna go kill herself.”
Aaron: Referring to spousal support, “Well, that’ll get it down a little cheaper.”
Mr. Roberts: “Um-hmm.”
Reality Check:
I was deeply affected by the callousness of their conversation. I stumbled upon it by chance while checking the disabled bunny cams again on the night of October 13. However, I'm thankful I did because it validated the uneasy feeling I had earlier that day when I was supposed to go to the house to collect the cash but ended up not going. I couldn't shake the feeling that something was definitely off.
My first and only suicide attempt occurred on October 24, 2021, because I felt that I could no longer tolerate Mr. Roberts' lies and callousness, which he put on full display daily.
Mr. Roberts subsequently dropped his DVRO against me after requesting five continuances in exchange for dropping the Contempt of Court charges I had filed, but the pain of his lies lingers today due to my having complex PTSD.
