Breaking Amish: Jeremiah Raber’s History Of Stalking & Violence Against His Ex-Wife
October 12, 2012 by Hollywoodite
This time last month, news outlet CBS 21 landed an interview with Jeremiah Raber’s ex-wife Naomi Stutzman who said Breaking Amish was “fake” and Raber’s back story on the show was obfuscated and, mostly, inauthentic.
There are lots of things from Raber’s past that have been hidden/ glossed over/ never mentioned by the show.
Until next week’s episode, for example, it’s never mentioned that he’s been married before. And Raber, 32, doesn’t mentioned that his three children are the names within the tattoo he’s really had since 2009 (he just tattooed over his ex-wife’s name which, she says, was at the top of the artwork before the New York artist covered it over). Raber’s since divorced, not least because of a documented, extensive history of domestic abuse against Stutzman, 27, and subsequent issues including child custody and child support for their minor children.
Also, Raber smokes and he’s owned multiple cars before and knows how to drive. His deleted-but-cached MySpace dated 2007 through 2010 showed a photo of Raber’s truck that Stutzman said was purchased by his mother (his family did not “shun” him). Moreover, Stutzman told this week’s Star Magazine, Raber taught her how to drive. Raber also pretends to get his first cell phone on the show, and marvel at the technology, when he’s owned cell phones for years too (according to a photo dated 2004 and Stutzman says he’s owned a cell as long as she’s known him).
The worst of his back story, of course, is his violence against Stutzman. She tells CBS 21: “I’ve been in the hospital multiple times from this man. He was physically abusive. I have the police reports. It’s the main reason we are not together. I had to go to the battered women’s shelter and now TLC is glorifying this man on a family show?” And there’s more.
Court records show, Raber “appears in at least 17 police reports; eight for domestic violence.” Raber would throw Stutzman to the ground, over and over, hit her in the stomach while she was pregnant, and threaten to harm the unborn baby saying if she left she would “not have his baby.”
Stutzman pursued charges and filed for a restraining order. Asked for comment by CBS 21, Sugarcreek Police, from the Ohio town in which the former couple lived with their kids, confirmed they received a “plethora” of calls about Raber “stalking” Stutzman and their three kids for whom she sought sole custody. Stutzman filed for divorce in 2011, on the grounds of “extreme cruelty and gross neglect of duty in Tuscarawas County, Ohio.”
Included below is the news report from CBS 21, some of the court records pertaining to their divorce, and Raber’s mug shot photo from the 2005 arrest for domestic violence.
