Padre Accused of Abuse, Sued for $10M
Ex-girlfriend files lawsuit alleging battery and emotional abuse
Updated 8:55 AM PST, Thu, Dec 18, 2008
An ex-girlfriend of Padre Brian Giles is suing him for $10 million in damages over their failed relationship. Included in the lawsuit are allegations of beatings while the woman was pregnant.
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When contacted about the lawsuit and asked for a comment, Giles' agent Joe Bick replied he had "none whatsoever." Bick did promise a reply to the lawsuit in the future.
The suit was made public on Tuesday. On the same day, Cheri Olvera's lawyer released surveillance video of an incident in August 2006 in which Giles is allegedly seen assaulting her.
In court documents NBCSanDiego.com obtained Tuesday, Cheri Olvera alleges Giles failed to uphold an oral agreement made six years ago to take care of her financially.
The couple met in Houston in 2001 and began dating sometime in 2002. Sometime around September 2002, Olvera claims Giles asked her to sell her home and furniture and move in with him in Pittsburgh when he was playing with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Olvera claims she and her daughter were requested by Giles to follow the right-fielder to San Diego when he started playing for the Padres. The couple rented a home in La Jolla while they looked to buy a home to share in San Diego.
Around December 2005, they got engaged. Even though the engagement was called off, court papers claim the couple maintained a “marriage-like relationship” until about April 2008.
“Beginning in 2002 and throughout the course of the parties’ long-term cohabiting relationship, the defendant conducted a continuing course of abusive conduct, including acts of emotional, verbal and physical domestic violence…” according to court documents.
The most serious of the allegations involve Olvera’s pregnancies. The lawsuit accuses Giles of hitting and slapping Olvera in the face, shaking and kicking her, and battering her twice when she was pregnant with Giles' child.
Olvera's attorney Cary W. Goldstein said Giles physically abused Olvera while she was pregnant in 2002, but he said his client doesn't blame Giles for her miscarriage in that pregnancy. Goldstein said Olvera became pregnant again, this time in early 2008, and that his client claims Giles threw her down a hallway, causing her to miscarry.
Olvera felt that was the last straw and left Giles in April 2008 because she believes he caused the miscarriage, according to her attorney.
"The man is not the charming individual he portrays publicly; he's actually, pardon the expression, a pig," Goldstein said.
Padres spokesman Warren Miller said the team was aware of the lawsuit and declined further comment.
First Published: Dec 16, 2008 3:37 PM PST
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