No one is more proud of Amber Portwood’s growth and accomplishments than Amber herself.
As wonderful as that is, it does not erase the past — or make it any less relevant to how people view her, or to how the court rules on custody.
Amber’s violent past is not in question, but Andrew Glennon says that the court does not yet know the extent of it.
In court, he recalled an incident where Amber threatened to slit his throat in his sleep — and revealed that he has the audio to prove it.
Amber Portwood and Andrew Glennon continue to duke it out in court.
Andrew hopes to move to California, where he has job offers on the table, and wants to take 3-year-old son James with him.
Amber is fighting that, hoping to keep James in Indiana where she lives.
The Sun reports that Andrew offered testimony to the judge about an alleged incident that took place months before Amber’s domestic violence arrest.
On April 15 of 2019, Amber allegedly threatened to do bodily harm to James in very explicit terms.
Andrew provided the court details … and offered up an audio recording.
“The audio ends with her saying ‘I’m going to f–king stab you,'” Andrew testified.
“She said she will slit my throat in my sleep,” he continued.
Those are extremely alarming and specific-sounding threats, if Andrew’s allegations are true.
Amber’s attorney hit back, demanding to know from Andrew if Amber had made these alleged threats after telling him to get away from her.
Andrew replied: “I don’t know.”
The attorney then suggested that Amber was “not aware she was being recorded,” prompting Andrew to say “no,” indicating that he believes that she knew.
That particular exchange at first appears to be about whether the recording is legal.
However, Indiana is a one-party consent state, meaning that if even one person in a conversation consents to being recorded, it is legal to do so.
We are not legal experts, but are unaware of any specifics in Indiana law or in Andrew and Amber’s situation that would make the recording inadmissible even if Amber didn’t know about it.
Andrew’s team asked that the audio evidence be played in court and entered into the record.
Amber’s side of course fought back, asking the court to refuse to admit the evidence.
The judge ruled that the audio will be “admitted over the objection of the mother,” indicating plans to “listen to the recoding after the conclusion of these proceedings.”
The judge clarified: “I will be listening to them outside of the record.”
The significance here, beyond the judge hearing it, is that Andrew’s attorney will be able to ask questions pertaining to the recording’s contents.
In turn, Amber’s legal team will be able to bring up the audio recording as well.
This matters because evidence must be admitted by the court in order for it to be fair game.
One cannot have one or both sides of a legal struggle constantly referring to something — a book, a recording, a piece of art — if the court has no frame of reference.
Assuming that Andrew’s description of the audio recording is accurate … this sounds very bad for Amber, and is a reminder that the attack before her July 2019 arrest was not an isolated incident.