The best advice I can give to families going through domestic violence custody issues. Prepare for the perpetrator of the violence to lie. A lot.
Line 22
The next moments then happened very quickly. AMY started moving closer to me and got up in my face, only about a foot away from me. She yelled at me “I feel like hitting you right now!” I felt very threatened by AMY’s words and was afraid of her.
Reality: I didn’t move towards her. She moved towards me. I never got in her face; I kept to myself. I did say I feel like hitting you, yes. Have I ever hit anyone? No. But let’s note that she said, “GO AHEAD HIT ME” and she stated she was never afraid of me in court testimony. I was so frustrated with her lack of compassion for her daughter. When confronted with having a stranger taking their 14-year-old family dog to be put down while they were on vacation, her response was he was old. This is horrible in my book, unfathomable. I don’t regret saying that I wanted to hit her, and I didn’t deserve to get attacked and strangled for saying it. She knew I never had any intention of actually hitting her, and let’s say I did; what damage would I do? I am not a fighter. I am very small.
Line 23
AMY continued moving closer to me and was clearly enraged. I truly believed AMY was about to hit me, so I put my hand on her shoulder and moved her away from me, back into the garage entry. AMY stumbled a little, so I let go immediately, and she caught her balance. AMY created a situation where I felt I had to escape. I felt panicked and fearful.
Reality: She told the police she pushed with a force of 8. Here she says she touched my shoulder, so which is it? She also told the police she was a big strong woman and could hurt me badly if she wanted to. I was not enraged I was crying and stressed from arguing about my stepdaughter being called a liar by her mother and needing to be disciplined for taking the family cat. It was not a family cat. It was her cat; her mom gave it to her to manipulate her to be at her house more. Aurelia lounged at me, grabbed me around the throat, bashed my head into the car and a cement floor until I was unconscious, and she would not let go of her neck while my husband was pulling her off of her. There is a long history of medical evidence to support all my injuries from her.
Line 24
At that point, AMY and I were about (3) feet into the garage. Father was still standing on my left side, about two (2) feet away from me. The AMY started screaming as if she was having a total breakdown and then AMY ran out of the garage into the backyard still screaming. I remained in the garage. I shouted to AMY “This is all your fault. You’re sabotaging my relationship with my daughter. You’re crazy. I didn’t kill my dog.”
Reality:
Father was never on her left. He was always on her right. This sentence is
completely untrue, not that it matters. I was screaming because she was trying to kill me, and I didn’t stop screaming until I was unconscious. Once I gained consciousness, I sprang to my feet to run out. Aurelia freaked out again and attacked Jonathan to try and get to me while he was trying to let me get away. I started screaming again, paralyzed with fear and being my only defense to help my husband. What Aurelia shouted at me was, “YOU DESTROYED MY LIFE,” as she grabbed me around the neck and strangled me to the ground. Once I got away, she shouted, “GET BACK HERE YOU!”. She had the voice of a demon; it was like she was possessed.
Line 25
The next thing I knew, while I was still looking at screaming AMY across the yard, Father shoved me down onto the floor of the garage and punched me hard in the chest. Again Father is 6’4″ and 225 pounds, so can throw a strong and damaging punch. The force of the blow was so great it knocked me backward and I hit a car.
Reality:
Utter lie. You physically cannot see into the yard from the garage. She is a total liar. Delusional. There was zero evidence on her body of harm; the only marks would make sense while she was on her knees strangling me. The police took photos of her. It is shocking the amount of lying this woman can do. Her entire existence is a lie to her children.
Line 26
I was completely shocked, confused and appalled by everything that just happened. I was crying and I looked at Father said “Now you hit the mother of your kids?” My chest was already hurting me a great deal, but I picked myself off the floor and left.
Reality:
Aurelia not once was crying and never said, “now you hit the mother of your kids?” she told the police she was a big strong woman and could have hurt me if she wanted to. She was also in a Psychotic Rage and tried to chase me into the backyard but couldn’t because my husband grabbed her arm. He had to beg her to leave, and when she did, she called her son very scared, telling him she had done something VERY BAD. Aurelia
was enraged. She would not stop arguing and kept yelling at my husband. I had a right to defend myself. She said she felt like hitting me, got in the car, and sped off. About two minutes later, my stepson called his Dad. Aurelia called him once she got in the car, all freaked out, and said she just did something really bad, and my husband explained what happened to him.
Line 27
At no point during the incident did I attack Father or AMY, at they allege. I did not run after AMY, as they allege. I did not even touch Father – rather it was he who pushed me down onto the ground and punched me full force in my chest. I did not attempt to strangle AMY or in any way touch her neck. The ONLY physcial contact I had with Father and AMY was to hold onto Amy’s shoulder to manipulate her back into the garage to prevent her from hitting me, as she was threatening to do. Father intentionally create a violent situation by blocking my exit and ganging up on me with his wife. I used a reasonable level of force to escape and attacked trying to get away from these people. I was victimized by their behavior and there is no rational justification for how they behaved and why there were waiting for me in the garage other than they planned to threaten and attack me.
Reality:
When the police got to her after she left our home, she shouted at them I DID NOT DO ANYTHING, and refused to get out of her car. Here in her declaration to the Court, it is the second time she says she DID NOT ATTACK, did not run after, and did not even touch Jonathan. Complete and terrible lie. There were photos taken of us the day it happened with marks all over us. I have suffered injuries similar to having been in a high-speed car crash. I was completely and utterly traumatized by these events happening in my life. My life may never be the same again physically, emotionally, or mentally. To have someone try to kill you with their bare hands in a total fit of rage and have that person be 70% heavier than you and a foot taller is so violent. The medical evidence to support that she did touch my neck is overwhelming. I am 5’4″ and 105 pounds now; I was smaller than Aurelia’s 12-year-old daughter. The exit was never blocked, nor did it make a difference because she was there with the intent to murder me or was having a complete schizophrenic breakdown to behave the way she did. This is a different deluded reality. She has pleaded guilty is evidence enough to have the mental stability of this mother explored as she was a danger to others. On the day of the attack, the ER visit resulted in a diagnosis code of 994.7 Asphyxiation and blunt head trauma. I suffered through 88 daily consecutive migraine headaches; as a result, impaired brain function, a permanent tired, hoarse voice, daily nauseous and a tremendous amount of anxiety from the trauma.
Line 28
I can only assume that any injuries noted in the police report were inflicted after I left the premises. At that point, Father had clearly committed to falsifying a police report and had nothing to lose by manufacturing false evidence too.
Reality:
She was convicted of a violent crime in Criminal Court before writing this; she is accusing Jonathan of then attacking me essentially after she left and falsifying police reports and had nothing to lose by doing so? That is so far reached it is incredible that this was written for a judge!
Line 29
When I returned home the police were already at my home. When it became apparent that I was being questioned as a suspect, I was very confused as it was Father who had hit me. Nevertheless, I reported my version of events, as set forth above.
Reality:
As if it was a surprise to her that she was the suspect. This is a classic narcissist.
Line 30
I told the police, my husband and my son that I had pushed AMY’s shoulder and that Father had punched me. I also showed them exactly where Father had hit me as the skin was already red (but not yet bruised). In fact, I repeatedly told the police that Father had punched me in the chest and that I had chest pains, but the police did not seem at all interested. I continued to have such severe chest pains after the April 12 incident I went to see my doctor. The doctor took x-rays and photographs of the obvious bruising that had developed on my chest.
Reality:
She probably inflicted her own injury on her chest now that I think about it. Isn’t that how it always works with people what they say is a mirror. The police were not interested in what she said because they had already seen me. It was super clear I was strangled and traumatized, and my husband hadn’t done it. We were shaking like leaves talking to them.
Aurelia went to the doctor on 4/20, eight days after the event. Although the pictures provided were not taken by the doctor, as you can see her desk in them, the doctor’s report does not show bruising to be present. Interestingly, both families see the same doctor. While, of course, Dr. Anderson does not speak to us about having seen Aurelia once for her “chest pains,” he does have a 360-degree view of both sides of the families and specifically the injuries and the path to recovery
that he has witnessed for me. My Physical Therapist Diane Fons is a 40-year-old veteran with a Ph.D. in Psychological and can speak extensively about my neck, head, shoulders, and back injuries from the attack. It was so violent that her neck injuries are consistent with car accident victims. 360-degree whiplash.
Line 31
The police were clearly not open to my account of the incident and told me that I could choose to prosecute Father for his attack on me once my criminal proceedings had been resolved. The fact that I had been at Father’s house clearly worked against me, despite the fact that I was only present because Father asked me to go there.
Reality:
She was present because she had books to drop off for her daughter, and where you are at when you commit a crime has nothing to do with whether you are guilty or not.
Line 32
While I was ultimately arrested ALL charges were dropped. The original charge relation to AMY was also drastically reduced to simple assault for pushing her shoulder. Although I did not want to plead guilty to even a lesser charge, based on the advice of counsel, the fact that Father appeared to getting away with his lies and the possibility that I may face imprisonment, I wanted the criminal prosecution to end for the sake of my family. I expected Father to drag things out and prevent this Court addressing our daughter’s needs and visitation.
Reality:
Yes, she was arrested. Yes, it was RED FLAGGED for potential homicide because of evidence of strangulation. She was advised to take a plea bargain because she would lose in Court with expert witnesses and medically proven traumatic brain injury from her assault. We are
waiting for the allocution from Kaitlan Vogel. Still, we were told that there would be three expert witnesses on strangulation for the jury to understand how dangerous, violent, and lethal strangulation is. It is because of this that the case did not go to trial, as Valagao was advised that her sentencing would be more severe, so it was in her best interest to plead. The criminal proceedings are People vs. Aurelia Valagao; Father did not have any control to “drag out”; Aurelia dragged the entire family through the ordeal by refusing to plead guilty for some time. She also dragged out family court, dragging her family through it to prove she was innocent in civil family court after a criminal conviction.
Line 33:
The civil harassment suit that AMY filed was dismissed when Father and Amy decided to take a vacation to Hawaii rather than appear at the hearing. Clearly, Father was not afraid enough of me to forgo his vacation, supporting my position Father wanted jail time for me. Our daughter Did NOT Witness the April 12, 2015 incident.
Reality:
What we were doing in this Court was redundant to what we were doing in Civil Court mentioned here. We filed civilly because of the need for restraining orders. But we’re informed that we got emergency criminal orders and needed a separate one. We had a family wedding in Hawaii planned months in advance. It was during the school year before the attack our daughter would have naturally been at her mother’s
house while we were away. All our doctors except for my brain doctor advised us to go. Flying made my head trauma more severe and ultimately was a bad decision for me to fly, but emotionally it did a lot for us to be out of reach of this psycho.
Strangled In La Jolla 