A Washington woman sought a domestic violence protection order after her ex-husband allegedly tracked her spending and even accessed her home’s Alexa device, despite a court-issued no-contact order. The Washington Court of Appeals upheld a five-year protection order, rejecting his challenge, in the ruling issued on Monday, Nov. 9.
A night that ended in an arrest
The couple married in 2006. They have one adult son, who was still a minor when the events that led to this case began. In December 2020, the couple argued. The husband became angry, followed his wife up the stairs, pushed her into a room, strangled her and twisted her head, according to court records. When she tried to get their son to call 911, he lifted her off the floor and covered her mouth. Police arrested him. He later pleaded guilty to fourth-degree assault.After the incident, the husband moved out and filed for divorce. In September 2021, a criminal court ordered him to stay away from his wife, her home, her workplace and any place she was. However, he had other plans. He kept contacting her anyway, the records show. A month later, he came to the family home while his wife was out of town. He knew she was away because he had been tracking her credit card purchases. The following month, he used an Alexa device inside the house to ‘drop in’ on the household. That same month, he accessed his wife’s email account and changed her password without her knowledge.The man continued stalking her. She saw him following her and their son on various occasions and reported these incidents. He jogged through her neighbourhood, although he had never done so during the marriage. He waited at a coffee shop she often visited, followed her in his car and hid in bushes to watch her. He also left anonymous packages and showed up at their son’s sporting events.The husband was charged with three counts of violating the no-contact order. Later, he took a plea deal, and those charges were dropped. The City of Seattle subsequently charged him with stalking and ordered him to wear an electronic home monitor. The city dismissed that charge without giving a public reason.The restraining order issued during the divorce proceedings was set to expire in September 2025. That was when the husband began posting online about how he planned to ‘outlive’ his wife. The wife said the posts frightened her even more because he had been spending time with a woman who had previously been convicted of killing her husband. Fearing for her life, the woman applied for a protection order that month. She submitted police reports, court orders, her own statements from the criminal case, a domestic violence assessment and screenshots of her husband’s Facebook posts. He responded with his own documents, including messages from a co-parenting app and a transcript of her statements to police in 2021.After hearing both sides in November 2025, a court commissioner issued the order, which protects her until 25 November 2030. However, the husband had shown no intention of complying with the order. The commissioner found that he had violated the no-contact order three times and continued watching his wife after the criminal case had ended. He had never completed a court-ordered domestic violence programme. A superior court judge denied his request to reconsider the decision and adopted the order as the court’s own.
The appeal and outcome
The husband appealed. He argued that he had moved out of state, that the court needed special evidence to justify a five-year order and that the judge had ignored his evidence challenging his wife’s credibility.In a ruling issued on November 9, 2026, the Washington Court of Appeals, Division One, rejected each argument. The court said state law does not allow a judge to deny an order because the person named in it has moved away. It also said the law does not require a special type of evidence to determine how long an order should last. Appellate courts do not reweigh credibility, and the judge had confirmed that he reviewed the full record, including the husband’s written arguments.The court also found a serious problem with the husband’s brief: he had cited a case that does not exist. The court refused to consider arguments based on that citation and awarded his wife attorney fees for the appeal, describing his filings as largely unsupported.The ruling is unpublished, which means other courts in Washington are not bound by it. Nevertheless, it confirms that the protection order will remain in place until 2030 and that the husband’s move out of state did not change the outcome.
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