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Charlie Sheen, wife want protection order lifted after arrest in Aspen

Rick Carroll
The Aspen Times
Aspen, CO Colorado
** FILE ** Actor Charlie Sheen with his wife Brooke Mueller arrive at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards, file photo dated Sunday, Sept. 16, 2007, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. A woman who identified herself as the wife of Charlie Sheen said in a 911 call to Aspen police that the actor threatened her with a knife and that she feared for her life, revealed as Police released the audio of the call on Monday, Dec. 28, 2009. The 44-year-old actor Sheen is reported to have denied threatening his wife with a knife or choking her. (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)
AP | AP

ASPEN – It will be up to a local judge to decide whether Charlie Sheen can have contact with his wife, after the embattled actor was jailed Christmas Day in Aspen on domestic violence allegations.

On Wednesday, Sheen’s Aspen attorney, Richard Cummins, filed a motion in Pitkin County District Court to lift the mandatory protection order that prohibits the Hollywood star from having any contact with his wife, Brooke Mueller Sheen.

Hours later, District Attorney Martin Beeson filed a one-sentence response to the motion: “The People oppose the Defendant’s motion to dismiss the Permanent protection order.”



Brooke Sheen’s attorney, Yale Galanter, said the couple, who have twin boys, want to make up. The only way to do that is to have contact with each other, he said.

“Stuff happens in a marriage,” said Galanter, who lives in Aspen and has a law practice in Florida. “And you’ve got to give them privacy so they can work it out.




“They’re adults, and if they want to work it out, let’s let them work it out.”

The husband and wife have not had any type of contact since the alleged Christmas Day altercation, Galanter and Cummins said.

“They have both scrupulously adhered to the court order,” Galanter said.

The star of the CBS sitcom “Two and a Half Men,” Charlie Sheen, 44, faces a class-four felony charge of second-degree assault, a class-five felony charge of menacing and a domestic violence count, according to an affidavit filed Monday by Rick Magnuson, the arresting Aspen police officer. He also faces the charge of criminal mischief, a misdemeanor.

Arnold Mordkin, the lead prosecutor in the case, has said he expects to file charges no later than Feb. 8, the date of Sheen’s first hearing.

After Sheen was arrested, a mandatory protection order was put in place that prohibits him from having contact with his wife and harassing witnesses. It also disallows him from possessing firearms or alcohol. Cummins’ motion asks the entire protection order to be lifted.

The matter has been scheduled for Monday’s docket in Pitkin County District Court. Less clear, however, is if Judge James Boyd will make a ruling at that time.

Mordkin would not talk about the Sheen case specifically.

“We’re opposed to having a blanket lifting of a mandatory protection order in all domestic violence cases,” he said.

According to an arrest affidavit, Charlie Sheen held Brooke Sheen at knife point at a West End home on Christmas morning and told her, “You better be in fear. If you tell anybody, I’ll kill you. Your mother’s money means nothing. I have ex-police I can hire who know how to get the job done and they won’t leave any trace.”

Galanter said it has been erroneously reported that Brooke Sheen recanted her statement to police. Were Sheen’s statements false, it could lead to her facing criminal charges.

“All of those stories about her recanting, that’s never happened,” Galanter said.

Galanter, who represented O.J. Simpson in his 2008 criminal trial, said it is possible that Brooke Sheen could testify against Charlie Sheen, should the case make it that far.

“One of the reasons that Brooke and her family hired me is because of the precarious legal situation this creates, of having the wife testify against the husband,” he said. “She’s hopeful that the marriage will work out, and if she’s a witness against her husband, that would be kind of tough.”

Charlie Sheen has denied the accusations, and told police that the two slapped each other on the arms during the course of the verbal altercation. He also told Magnuson that he broke two pairs of Mueller’s eyeglasses in front of her, according to the affidavit.

An ambulance was sent to the house but police say no one was taken to the hospital.

Although several media outlets have said alcohol was involved, the affidavit makes no mention of that.

rcarroll@aspentimes.com