According to a recently discovered audio recording acquired by USA Today, the spouse of purported MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia sought help from a Maryland judge due to instances of domestic violence.

Jennifer Vasquez Sura has repeatedly defended her husband’s innocence after the Trump administration deported him to El Salvador over his alleged gang ties but acknowledged making a “clerical error” in his removal from the US.

In the newly-surfaced audio from 2020, Vasquez Sura could be heard outlining several instances of physical abuse by Abrego Garcia that resulted in her making “a lot of police reports” and suffering “bruises” from his alleged beatings.

She said she had already made one attempt to obtain a protective order against Abrego Garcia, but was stopped “because his family like washed my brain, telling me that his dad was sick and not to do it.”

Vasquez Sura also shared that, in one instance, Abrego Garcia “pushed” her as she tried to enter the basement of their home, forcing her to call 911 and cry for help from a neighbor.

She said police took “a long time to get to the house — it was probably like 20, 30 minutes.”

“So I saw a neighbor walking his dog and I opened the door and I was like ‘help.’ And then when he heard me, like, [Abrego Garcia] grabbed me from my hair, and then he slapped me. And then the neighbor, like, he didn’t know what to do,” she added.

Vasquez Sura said Abrego Garcia “hit me” earlier that week “around like three in the morning” and did so on several other occasions.

“He would just wake up and like hit me. And then last Saturday for my daughter’s birthday party, before I went to my daughter’s birthday party, he slapped me three times and then last week, I did call the police. My sister called the police because he hit me in front of my sister,” she said.

In response to the audio clip resurfacing, Vasquez Sura told USA Today that “neither” she nor Abrego Garcia “were in a good place at the time.”

“I previously acknowledged the protection order and will again address a personal and painful part of mine and Kilmar’s life,” said Vasquez Sura.

She went on to say Abrego Garcia “was traumatized from the time he spent in ICE detention, and we were in the throes of COVID.”

“Like many couples, we were caring for our children with barely enough to get by. All of those factors contributed to the actions which caused me to seek the protective order,” she added.

Vasquez Sura applied for a protective order from her husband in 2020 with the District Court of Maryland for Prince George’s County. The order said he once boasted he could kill his wife and “no one could do anything to him.”

The newly surfaced document preceded a 2021 protective order request she filed against her husband. In that document she alleged he had punched, scratched and grabbed her — with some of the alleged abuse so severe, she was left with bruises and bleeding.