In the cross-complaint case fight between Angelia Jolie and her husband Brad Pitt, a new chapter was opened related to a private plan of 2016.
Pic Credit- The New York Times
On Tuesday, Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie filed a cross-complaint against her ex-husband Brad Pitt. She provided new information about what she had previously referred to in court documents as Pitt’s abusive behavior on a private plane in 2016, which ultimately resulted in the breakdown of their marriage.
Lawyers for Ms. Jolie claimed that Mr. Pitt’s demand that she sign a nondisclosure agreement that would have prevented her from discussing Pitt’s physical and emotional abuse of her and their children outside of court caused negotiations to sell her share of the company to fail. The dispute arose from a winery that well-known Hollywood actors once co-owned.
She continues in her filing to detail a protracted verbal and physical outburst that occurred in September 2016 during a flight from France to California that Mr. Pitt, Ms. Jolie, and their six children were taking.
Ms. Angelina Jolie filed for divorce:
According to the filing, “Pitt poured beer on Jolie; at another, he poured beer and red wine on the children,” adding that “he choked one of the children and struck another in the face” and “grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her.” Federal authorities, who have oversight over flights, looked into the incident but decided against filing any charges. A few days following her flight, Ms. Jolie filed for divorce.
Anne Kiley, a divorce attorney for Mr. Pitt, claimed that although Mr. Pitt had admitted responsibility for some of his past actions, he would not take accountability for things he did not commit.
Ms. Kiley further stated that during this year’s divorce settlement talks, which were separate from the discussions regarding the winery, a lawyer for Ms. Jolie had sent Mr. Pitt’s lawyers a preliminary proposal to try to settle the case, and that one of the preliminary proposals had been a stipulation that neither party could disparage the other in public, other than in court.
However, when Ms. Angelina Jolie’s side responded, she did not bring up the nondisparagement proposal once more, according to Ms. Kiley, who claimed Mr. Pitt’s side agreed to discuss the term.
A legal dispute over their children’s custody
The separation of Ms.Angelina Jolie and Mr. Pitt has dragged on for years as a result of a legal dispute over their children’s custody and, more recently, a legal action brought by Mr. Pitt regarding the Château Miraval winery in France that the couple purchased more than ten years ago. When she sold her share of the business to a division of the Stoli Group without his consent, Mr. Pitt’s lawsuit, filed this year, claimed that his ex-wife had violated his “contractual rights.”
According to Ms. Angelina Jolie’s cross-complaint, negotiations were put on hold because of his insistence that they sign a nondisclosure agreement, and it was only after that that she sold her stake to someone else. In the woman’s complaint, it is stated that the F.B.I. agent who looked into the allegations that Mr. Pitt physically abused Ms. Angelina Jolie and their children on the plane in 2016 came to the conclusion that there was “probable cause” to indict Pitt for his actions on that particular day.
The agent gave the United States Attorney’s Office “copies of a probable cause statement related to this incident,” according to a redacted F.B.I. report on the case, which was covered by several news organizations in August and subsequently obtained by The New York Times.
The report stated that a representative of the United States Attorney’s Office spoke with the case agent about the merits of this investigation after reviewing the document. Considering a number of factors, it was decided by all parties that no criminal charges would be filed in this case.
According to the F.B.I. report, Ms. Angelina Jolie was “concerned about whether or not to be supportive of charges” in the case. The US Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles and the F.B.I. did not respond to requests for comment.
The lawyers for Angelina Jolie stated in the cross-complaint that she had “gone to great lengths to try to shield their children from reliving the pain Pitt inflicted on the family that day.” Pitt, however, forced Jolie to make her first public defense of herself on these matters when he filed this lawsuit in an effort to reassert control over her financial life and force her to reunite with her estranged husband as a frozen-out business partner.
According to Ms. Angelina Jolie’s account of the 2016 flight in the court documents, the argument started when Mr. Pitt accused Ms. Jolie of being “too deferential” to their kids and then started screaming at her in the bathroom.
According to the complaint, “Pitt grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her, then grabbed her shoulders and shook her again, before pushing her into the bathroom wall.” Pitt repeatedly struck the plane’s ceiling after that, which caused Jolie to come out of the restroom.
According to court documents, Ms. Angelina Jolie grabbed Mr. Pitt from behind after one of the kids stepped up to defend her. Mr. Pitt allegedly lunged at the kid. The lawsuit claimed that Mr. Pitt choked one of the kids and hit another one in the face during the altercation.
The news media has covered it extensively since soon after the 2016 flight took place. The FBI announced that it had concluded its investigation into the flight and that no charges had been brought in a statement they issued in November of that year.
In an anonymous lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act, Ms. Jolie requested information about the F.B.I.’s investigation, according to a report in Puck News that was published in August.
Insinuations that Mr. Pitt had choked or struck any of the kids may or may not have been included in the heavily redacted F.B.I. report.
On the set of the 2005 action film “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” in which they starred as married assassins, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt got to know one another. They acquired a majority stake in Château Miraval in 2008 and later got married there after seeing the property as both a family home and a business.
