Taylor Frankie Paul, known for her roles in “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” and the cancelled season of “The Bachelorette,” will not face charges following recent altercations with her ex-partner, as confirmed by the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office on Tuesday.
In Draper City and West Jordan, police have been investigating allegations of domestic violence in 2024 and this February made by Paul’s former partner, Dakota Mortensen, who is the father of their two-year-old child. While Paul also made accusations against Mortensen, those claims were not addressed in the official documents.
Any new legal actions against Paul would have violated her probation terms, which were the result of an assault on Mortensen back in 2023.
Both parties have submitted petitions for protective orders against each other, which will be discussed in an upcoming court hearing.
Breanne Miller, a lawyer from the district attorney’s Family Protection Unit, explained in a memo that Paul will not be charged as several incidents did not meet the criteria for criminal charges, and others lacked sufficient evidence. Some reported incidents dated back more than three years, falling outside the legal review timeframe.
The decision not to press charges does not directly impact Mortensen’s existing protective order against Paul, which has been provisionally granted and may become permanent during an April 30 hearing. However, the lack of prosecution could assist Paul and her legal team in presenting her case to the court commissioner, who previously stipulated that Paul could only have supervised visits with her son.
During an April 7 hearing, Eric Swinyard, Paul’s attorney, argued that Mortensen was the aggressor in a February altercation referred to as “the truck tussle.” Mortensen claimed in his protective order request that Paul threw a drink at him during an argument in a truck to avoid waking sleeping children. Swinyard countered by alleging that Mortensen assaulted Paul by slamming her head into the dashboard and punching her leg, providing photographic evidence of her bruises.
An incident in 2023 involving a physical altercation between the couple led to ABC shelving a completed season of “The Bachelorette” after a leaked video showed Paul engaging in violent behavior towards Mortensen, including punching, kicking, and throwing chairs while her young daughter witnessed the incident. Paul faced charges of aggravated assault and domestic violence in the presence of a child, ultimately pleading guilty to assault. This charge will be reduced to a misdemeanor if she maintains a clean record for the three-year probationary period ending in August.
Paul and Mortensen have had eleven disputes examined in their protective order requests. A video from May of the previous year showed Paul pushing Mortensen and yelling at him to leave her house while he was holding their son, raising concerns about her self-control.
The couple’s tumultuous relationship was a prominent feature on “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” contributing to Paul’s rise to reality TV stardom. The show’s debut episode included police body camera footage of her 2023 arrest.