Texan Suing Ex’s BFFs Over Abortion Allegedly Promised to Drop Lawsuit for Sex
The Texas woman whose ex-husband is suing her friends for $1 million each for allegedly helping her obtain an abortion says in a new court filing that he promised to drop the lawsuit in exchange for sex — then reneged on the deal afterward.
Brittni Silva referred to the agreement in a recorded conversation that allegedly took place between herself and her ex-husband, Marcus Silva, a transcript of which is included in the filing. In the conversation, Brittni Silva says, “[Y]ou sat there and said you weren’t gonna file a f-cking lawsuit; therefore, we were gonna have sex. And I had sex with you, Marcus, even after you f-cking put me through goddamn hell for that.”
In the same conversation, Marcus Silva threatened to post intimate videos of his ex-wife online — and to send them to her workplace, her family members, their workplaces — unless she did his laundry.
“You’re just gonna have your f-cking life destroyed in every f-cking way that you can imagine to where you want to blow your f-cking brains out,” Silva told his ex-wife, according to the transcript, which was filed as part of the proceedings taking place in District Court in Galveston, Texas, this week.
Marcus Silva filed a lawsuit in March seeking $1 million from two of Brittni Silva’s best friends, as well as a third woman, accusing the trio of “wrongful death and conspiracy” for allegedly helping her obtain abortion pills.
The lawsuit was filed by Jonathan Mitchell, the former Texas solicitor general who has risen to prominence for his contributions to Senate Bill 8, Texas’ abortion bounty law. The law, which went into effect in September 2021, empowers private citizens to sue anyone they suspect of “aiding or abetting” an abortion. State Rep. Briscoe Cain is also listed as a lawyer for Silva. Neither Mitchell nor Cain immediately responded to a request for comment on the new filing.
The original suit included long portions of Brittni Silva’s group text with her friends, in which she described the problems in her relationship, and her fear that her then-estranged husband would “use” an unwanted pregnancy “against” her if he discovered it. In other text messages filed as part of the suit, Brittni Silva tells her friends he threatened to “make sure I go to jail” for obtaining an abortion.
Brittni Silva’s lawyers accuse Marcus Silva of filing the lawsuit in an attempt “to intimidate, harass, control, and traumatize Brittni — and force her to sleep with him.”
Brittni Silva is not a defendant in the lawsuit; S.B. 8 cannot be used to sue the person who seeks an abortion herself, only those who assist her. Likewise, Texas’ abortion ban imposes criminal penalties on abortion providers, not their patients. But Marcus Silva appears, nonetheless, to be attempting to pull his ex-wife into the legal proceedings, subpoenaing her text messages and personal records.
In the latest filing, Brittni Silva’s lawyers asked the court to deny the motion to compel her to produce documents, citing her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. They also ask the court to dismiss the case entirely, calling the lawsuit “the latest abusive tactic in a long line of steps he has taken to harass and control Brittni, his ex-wife.”
Those steps also included allegedly threatening to release an intimate video of his ex-wife unless she does his laundry.
In the transcript, Marcus Silva asks his ex-wife, “Are you gonna f-cking correct this sh-t?”
“What do you want me to correct?” She asks.
“My f-cking laundry, Brittni,” he replies.
Silva goes on to threaten to post intimate videos on the website Pornhub. “Have I gotten ready for it? Have I prepared it all? Do I have all of the Pornhub f-cking titles created already that will link to the f-cking articles and link to [Brittni Silva’s employer’s] f-cking Facebook or — website? Do I have sex videos and text messages? Do I have sex videos with you and me from angles where you can’t tell it’s me? … I will f-cking manipulate it into looking like you f-cked all these different guys in different places if I f-cking need to.”
He promises to send emails to Brittni Silva’s parents, and her parents’ co-workers, her brother, her family friends. “I got everybody’s emails,” Silva says, according to the transcript.
According to filing made by Brittni Silva’s lawyers, the conversation took place in June, months after the couple’s divorce was finalized in February, and after Marcus Silva filed his lawsuit in March. The pair share two children.
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