Death Threat
What if your life was threatened and the judge didn’t protect you? But then you find out – THE JUDGE WAS IN THE SAME SORORITY AS THE WOMAN WHO THREATENED YOU. Watch the video to learn more.
Death Threat
“I had to get up every day wondering if my kids are going to go to a funeral or if they’re going to have their freaking mom alive,” Sarah Tamilarasan said.
Sarah is scared to death. And who could blame her?
“I’m going to ram my car. I’m going to shoot her fucking windows out. She’s going to have two kids without their mother,” Sonnice Estill threatened in a phone call.
But instead of getting help, she has found herself simply screwed by the Fort Bend County court system.
“And this is absolutely shocking to me that the legal system cannot protect a mom like me when I have the evidence recorded,” Tamilarasan said.
The screaming woman in those phone recordings, is the same woman who was caught on camera approaching her husband with a knife, then destroyed his computer.
Is this a woman you want teaching your kids?
“Did your client make those threats?” Wayne Dolcefino asked.
“Threatening my life? Normal people don’t do that,” Tamilarasan said.
Sarah Tamilarasan is a single mom and a co-founder of a growing tech company.
“Working super hard and capitalizing on opportunities that we get. That’s all I do. When I’m not with the kids, I’m working,” Tamilarasan said.
Her business partner is this guy; Robert Estill. And he’s got a nightmare of an ex-wife. She’s become Sarah’s nightmare, too.
“She has always been very violent, very threatening. And I’ve heard that firsthand from Robert throughout their divorce,” said Tamilarasan.
She did the things we all would to protect ourselves if we were scared.
She bought a gun and trained on how to use it.
She locks her doors all the time now.
And it all started after her partner went through an ugly divorce.
“Fuck you. You’re a dead man walking, bitch. And I mean what the fuck I say” Sonnice Estill said in a phone call.
“And he says, ‘so, she’s threatening to kill you too this time.’”
“And I mean what the fuck I say” Sonnice Estill said in a phone call.
“And I was like, ‘what?’” Tamilarasan said.
The threats started last November.
“I’m going to put my foot dead in your motherfucking ass. I’m telling you, you’re going to have the police out here. And I mean what I say,” Sonnice Estill threatened.
If these aren’t criminal threats, I’m not sure what is.
“I went to the DA’s office twice,” Tamilarasan said.
She went to press charges. They weren’t interested.
“And they said they can’t do anything because apparently the threat is not imminent, which makes no sense to me,” Tamilarasan said.
“This is a very messy domestic dispute,” Wesley Wittig said.
“When I get to the restaurant, Imma beat the dog shit outta her” Sonnice Estill said in a phone call.
“The evidence was insufficient to move forward,” Wesley Wittig said.
So, she went to court filing to get a protective order in the 328th district Court, Judge Monica Rollins presiding.
She got a temporary order against Earnell Sonnice Estill. That’s the name on the divorce decree and on utility bills.
Sarah’s lawyers couldn’t find her anywhere.
The unelected associate judge, Felicia Young, gave Sarah permission to do what is called substitute service, handing off the subpoena where Estill works.
In this case, Texas Southern University.
Estill is on your payroll, an assistant professor teaching health sciences.
She’s the lead faculty member for a health care program at the University of Oklahoma.
When she didn’t show up in court, the associate judge granted what’s called a default judgment and signed a permanent protective order.
But the protection didn’t last long, and your tax dollars, it turned out, helped put Sarah back in danger.
And it’s all over a name.
A process server had taken the subpoena to TSU back on March 21st, but look at the name on her office door.
It says her name is Sonnice Estill, not Earnell Estill.
She wasn’t there, so the court papers were handed off to the program director, Elizabeth Donnachie.
“You need to talk to lawyer at Texas Southern University. Goodbye,” Donnachie said in a phone call.
We talked to the lawyer. She wants you to believe they were simply confused about their own employee.
“We don’t have anything to do with it. But as a matter of due diligence, I went ahead and forwarded to the only email address that we have under that last name,” Charlie Nhan said in a phone call.
His so-called due diligence was forwarding the subpoena to an email a full seven days after the process server had dropped it off.
“So, she did get served.” Andrea Palacio said over the phone.
“Yeah, that’s what I was trying to tell you,” Nhan responded.
Think that’s the end of the story? It’s not.
Early in May, the same associate judge threw out the protective order.
Estill’s lawyer claimed she had never been properly served, that her legal name wasn’t Earnell Sonnice Estill. It’s Sonnice Earnell Estill.
She had legally changed it and flipped her first and middle name, even though her own court filings still called her Earnell.
So, Sarah had to start from the beginning, months after she asked for help.
Her lawyers subpoenaed the TSU employee and the school’s general counsel to prove Estill was notified by the court.
“There’s no different way to read it. He called my lawyer and said, you know what? We’re going to squash the subpoena. We’re going to get the attorney general involved, etc ,” Tamilarasan said.
Because they’re state employees, now the Texas Attorney General’s office was involved.
They moved to block the testimony of the TSU employees.
That’s your tax dollars at work.
What about Sarah?
It all led to a court hearing in front of the judge.
Even her own lawyer uses her now as her first name, not her middle name, Sonnice.
And Estill’s ex-husband, of more than ten years, says the whole thing about the name is ridiculous.
“I guarantee you that, yes, they know her over there at TSU,” Robert Estill said.
After ninety minutes in court, that cost Sarah thousands of dollars, Judge Rawlins said yep, you don’t get protection until you serve Estill under her “proper legal name.”
“Did I really just spend an hour and a half of my life listening to y’all argue about a name?” Wayne Dolcefino asked.
“Yeah. You did, but who are you?” Ronique Robinson responded.
“I’m Wayne Dolcefino,” Dolcefino said.
Now a full-blown trial has to be scheduled and 8 months after the threats started.
Sarah feels like she’s back at square one.
If something happens to Sarah now, Judge Rollins will have blood on her hands.
“This is, like, this huge campaign on so many different levels to intimidate a single mom. All the frivolous motions. It’s just a game,” Tamilarasan said.
Sarah believes the judge is showing favoritism toward Earnell, or Sonnice, and her lawyer—or both.
“Turns out Ronique, Sonnice’s lawyer, graduated from TSU. And Judge Rawlins also happened to graduate from TSU. And I do feel that they knew who this person was, and served her. But behind the scenes, I think they came up with a plan to say that they only sent it to her on March 28th,” Tamilarasan said.
Judge Rawlins and Ronique Robinson did graduate from TSU’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law, but it was several years apart.
It looks like the women know each other socially through the sorority, Delta Sigma Theta.
Attorney Robinson holds a chair at the sorority and Rawlins has co-sponsored charity events.
One thing is for sure, Robinson didn’t want to answer our questions.
“We were arguing about a name, I asked you if the client got served,” Dolcefino said.
“You’re a joke,” Robinson said.
“I’m sorry?” Dolcefino responded.
“You’re a joke,” said Robinson.
“I’m a joke? Why am I a joke?” Dolcefino asked.
It’s certainly not funny that the judge couldn’t figure out that all this was about stalling protection for Sarah.
Houston lawyer Karleana Farias says she filed an official grievance against the judge last year.
“Judge Rawlins needs to go. She is unfair. She is unhinged. She definitely plays favorites,” Farias said.
She claims, in one of her cases, she saw an email thread from the judge’s quote coordinator to her opposing counsel that did not include her.
“That is just totally inappropriate,” Farias said.
Another ethics issue came up after Rawlins’ personal divorce back in 2010.
She pushed to collect an extra year of child support from her ex because of a typographical error in the record.
A mistake? Well, the folks on the criminal appeals court didn’t buy it.
Listen to their opinion: “We would hope that an attorney would not insist upon erroneous back child-support payments. Regrettably, some lawyers subscribe to a different code of personal and professional ethics.”
Ouch.
Meanwhile, Estill has now filed for her own protective order against Sarah, alleging harassing and threatening behavior.
Robert says she’s trying to stall the whole protection thing.
“Based upon the facts of this matter, I thought it was going to be a really, really quick, one and done and over with,” Robert Estill said.
Robert is worried enough that he too has now filed his own report with Houston police.
In June, the 280Th District Court granted Robert a temporary protective order approved by the Harris County D.A. Office.
But, what about Sarah?
Doesn’t she deserve protection too?
“Well, I’ve never filed a police report in my life. Ever. I really see this as a valid threat,” Robert Estill said.
The legal maneuverings have already added up to outrageous legal bills just to get protection.
And it’s not over.
“I spent $53,000 trying to get a protective order. Because she said she’s going to shoot me and leave my kids without a mom. And I had to get up every day wondering if my kids are going to go to a funeral or if they’re going to have their freaking mom alive,” Tamilarasan said.
“She just stays in the house all the time. So it’s affecting not only her, you know, personally, which is for sure understandable. It affects our business. It affects everything,” Robert Estill said.
Sarah believes the ordeal she’s gone through is a deliberate plan to price her out of getting justice.
She’s discouraged, but not giving up.
“All I wanted was a protective order,” Tamilarasan said.
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