Karen Derrico is currently entangled in a legal battle, facing several charges. These accusations stem from purported threats she made against her former partner, Deon Derrico, and have recently been intensified by the release of a troubling audio recording involving a confrontation with one of her children.
The audio, obtained by TMZ, features a turbulent exchange where Karen chastises her child for allegedly calling her a “liar.”
During the phone call, Karen is heard expressing her frustration, “You don’t know what the hell I’m going through and what I’ve been through. You’re only going by what he said.” She appeared to be referencing Deon at this moment. Her heated remarks continued, stating, “I’m the freaking one that carried your little behind. I’m the one that told the doctors no when they asked me to abort your little ass. Don’t ever do that again, because you make me regret it.”
Following Karen’s declarations of regret, another child interjected, stating, “No wonder why you said you were going to kill me.”
Karen swiftly refuted this accusation made by the child.
“No, no, no, I never said I’m gonna,” Karen said. “I said I’d kill you if you pissed me off,” adding that her son had “disrespected me.”
In response to the audio, Karen’s attorney Jess Marchese described the phone call to Oxygen as a “total nothing burger” and “not a crime (other than someone surreptitiously recording someone).”
“[This was] a child taking the side of their father,” Marchese said, “obviously trying to bait Karen.”
The audio was published two days after Karen was arraigned on charges of violating a temporary restraining order, harassment, aggravated stalking and preventing or dissuading a witness from testifying or producing evidence with immediate threat or use of physical force, according to a criminal complaint provided to Oxygen.
Karen, who was charged under the name Karen Evonne Carter, has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
“The allegations are completely false,” Marchese previously told Oxygen, “and we will prove they were completely fabricated by Mr. Derrico.”
Among the allegations laid out in the criminal complaint, Karen was accused of “willfully, unlawfully, and knowingly” threatening to cause bodily injury to Deon in a June 17 email. This, authorities said, caused Deon to have “reasonable fear that the threat will be carried out.”
“I want you dead,” she allegedly wrote, per the court records. ”I could kill you and it won’t even bother me to go to jail and I’ll kill any of my kids if they take your side.”
Authorities said Karen also allegedly tried to prevent Deon from attending a court proceeding pertaining to a temporary order for protection against domestic violence they had in place. According to the criminal complaint, Karen allegedly threatened Deon on May 2, “telling him to watch out, that she is getting a gun and/or will have someone kill him before he can go to court.”
Per court records, the aggravated stalking charge against her stems from allegations that Karen threatened Deon’s “immediate safety” by claiming she had a gun and would “kill him and/or his new girlfriend and/or his children.”
“It really alarmed and alerted me when my children told me that she had threatened to kill them,” Deon said in an interview with Parade.
He claimed “the threats started” when he filed a temporary protective order against her and he didn’t reply to her emails asking to resolve their legal matters.
“She emailed me more, emailed me more,” he said. “And then eventually the emails just started to escalate. And so some of the same threats that had been said to me verbally were now in email and as well my children.”
Karen’s legal team has maintained her innocence.
“We have proven at this point with about 90% certainty,” Marchese told Oxygen, “that these emails are forgeries.”
Karen is scheduled to return to court Aug. 6, according to court records reviewed by Oxygen.