mortensen

In a hearing about competing protective order filings from reality TV star Taylor Frankie Paul and her ex-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen, a Utah judge granted Thursday that both orders go into effect, though he delayed making a decision on a custody arrangement.

The orders, which were issued by third district court commissioner Russell Minas, are in place for three years and require Paul and Mortensen to stay at least 100 feet away from each other. He also warned that they both could be subjected to criminal charges if there’s a violation of the orders.

“I do think it’s important that there be mutual orders,” Minas said. “I am just concerned that if I don’t order both of them to stay away from each other, there’s going to be some additional problems.”

Addressing Paul and Mortensen, Minas said: “I’m hoping that you’re not people who just thrive on the drama and the conflict … I do want to work with both of you to try to restore some sense of normalcy. I just think right now, you two need to stay away from each other and there needs to be orders that will result in consequences if you attempt to try to engage each other because I still think you have this attraction to each other, physical or otherwise.”

“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” star, 31, and Mortensen, 33, both appeared in Utah court for the hearing, which was livestreamed, the first time they’ve been seen in the same room together since news broke last month that they were involved in domestic violence investigations involving multiple allegations.

In the weeks leading up to the ruling, the judge had granted Mortensen custody of their son, with up to eight hours per week of supervised visitation for Paul, known as one of the stars of Hulu’s “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.” That arrangement will stay in place until the judge offers his recommendation on parent time on or before May 11.

Dakota Mortensen in the courtroom on Thursday.

(Bethany Baker / Associated Press)

A review hearing is set for June, once mental health and domestic violence assessments of Paul and Mortensen ordered as part of the safety plan by child protective services have been completed and processed.

Paul’s attorney, Eric M. Swinyard, described the hearing as a “significant step forward.”

“Taylor was incredibly candid with the Court that she is not perfect and owned her faults,” read part of his statement. “She looks forward to continuing to cooperate with the Court to make progress in the custody case.”

The Times also reached out to Mortensen for comment.

Paul and Mortensen had been under investigation by both the Draper City Police Department and West Jordan Police Department regarding a series of allegations each made that the other had acted violently during altercations in February, as well as an incident that took place in 2024. After the February allegations made headlines, a video of Paul in 2023 that led to her arrest was leaked; it showed the reality star throwing bar stools at Mortensen while her daughter was present. (Paul pleaded guilty in abeyance to aggravated assault following that incident and her probation in that case will be up in August.) Amid the investigation, Mortensen and Paul filed competing protective orders against each other.

The Salt Lake County district attorney’s office and the Draper City prosecutor both declined to file charges against Paul in April, citing insufficient evidence to prove allegations beyond a reasonable doubt.

The situation between the embattled exes also resulted in the pausing of filming of “Mormon Wives” Season 5. The show has documented the pair’s tumultuous relationship since it’s launch in 2024. It also led to the shelving of Season 22 of ABC’s “The Bachelorette,” which featured Paul as its heroine.

But Thursday’s ruling on the orders comes a week after reports surfaced that “Mormon Wives” has resumed production on its fifth season, without Paul and Mortensen’s involvement — though, Paul reportedly has the option to return. The fate of the unaired season of “The Bachelorette” remains unclear.

Alexandra Del Rosario contributed reporting.

PITTSBURGH — Daniel Jeremiah traces his rise as an NFL draft analyst to two seemingly unrelated events: a prominent football reporter showing up in his living room to visit a televangelist, and randomly bumping into a college roommate of his brother in a press box.

First, understand that Jeremiah is not just one in a sea of people evaluating pro prospects. He’s highly respected in the industry and, in addition to his radio work as a color analyst for Chargers games, has been the NFL Network’s go-to expert when it comes to breaking down the strengths and weaknesses of players and how they fit with a given franchise.

The former college quarterback is glib, quick on his feet and meticulously organized. Reporters turn to him — his pre-draft conference calls with NFL writers from coast to coast have sometimes lasted more than two hours — and super-secretive team scouts trust “DJ” as a peer, an extra set of eyes.

“I like to joke that I can kind of be a cross-checker for these teams,” said Jeremiah, 48, who lives in El Cajon, where he once set San Diego records for passing yards and touchdowns at Christian High. “So they’ll call and say, ‘Hey, where do you have this guy? What do you think of this player?’”

Jeremiah was once part of that world. He was a college scout with the Baltimore Ravens, Cleveland Browns and Philadelphia Eagles. But his path from quarterback at Northeastern Louisiana and Appalachian State to where he is now was anything but a straight line. It was a more unpredictable and roundabout route than any offensive coordinator would dare draw.

Roll back the clock 40 years, when his father, David Jeremiah, was the senior pastor at a Baptist church in El Cajon. Every Sunday, he would go from pew to pew greeting parishioners. Young Daniel was at his side and doing the same, perfecting a firm handshake, practicing looking people in the eye.

The elder Jeremiah would go on to launch an international radio and television ministry. His son, who remains devout, would eventually carve out a career preaching the gospel of the NFL to an audience of millions. Daniel’s description of player traits are digestible and entertaining, whether it’s his own phraseology or the language he learned after more than two decades in the business.

Daniel Jeremiah speaks with a reporter ahead of the NFL draft in Pittsburgh on Wednesday.

(Ed Rieker / Associated Press)

An unflinching running back might “choose violence,” a team that builds the line before adding skill-position talent is “putting the hardware store before the toy store,” and an edge rusher who passes the “wet paint” test can get around the corner with such lean that “If he played on a field of wet paint, he did not have a drop of paint on him at the end of the game.”

Said Charlie Yook, executive producer of content for NFL Network: “Daniel is hilarious, a funny guy. It’s a different type of humor. He doesn’t swear. He kind of has that schoolish, boyish, sarcastic type of humor, but it’s still something that everyone can relate to.”

Now, for that renown football reporter who showed up in his living room. It was the late Chris Mortensen, who covered the NFL for ESPN and regularly listened on Sunday mornings to the preachings of Dr. David Jeremiah. In 1998, when San Diego played host to the Super Bowl between Denver and Green Bay, Mortensen used the opportunity to meet his favorite radio minister. The elder Jeremiah invited him over to the house for lunch. Daniel was a college freshman home on winter break. He and Mortensen instantly bonded, and the reporter asked if he’d like to attend Super Bowl media day. Later, he invited the young man to join him at the draft in New York, giving him an assignment to work the phones.

Mortensen would give his landline number at the draft to all the team general managers, reporters and other contacts around the league. Jeremiah manned the phone “like a secretary,” took notes and relayed them during commercial breaks. Already showing a knack for organization, Jeremiah kept index cards sorted by division and by tracked receiver and cornerback needs, keeping tabs on which of those players went there.

“That draft was bigger than this draft for me personally,” Jeremiah said, sitting in the stands at an NFL event in Pittsburgh before a cluster of reporters would surround him for final observations on how the first round would unfold.

So a straight line from there to a Mortensen-like role with NFL Network? Hardly. Jeremiah’s next job was with ESPN’s “Sunday Night Football” and a gig that was football-adjacent. He traveled with that crew as a production assistant, but his role was lining up the scenic footage in every city. Say it was a Rams game in St. Louis, he was the one setting up a shoot at a root beer factory so the network had something local to show coming in and out of commercials.

He did that for two years, but eventually his knowledge of the game as a onetime quarterback made him too valuable to waste. The crew put a headset on him and he would be another set of eyes for camera operators and people in the production truck. What cornerback got beat on that play? He knew. Who’s warming up on the sideline? He was watching. How many times has the defense blitzed? He was keeping track. It was a dream job.

“I was a pig in slop,” Jeremiah said.

But it was but one slop stop in his budding career. While walking through a press box at a game, he bumped into his brother’s old college roommate, T.J. McCreight, who was scouting for the Ravens.

“He goes, ‘Hey, do you think you’d ever have any interest in scouting,’” Jeremiah recalled. “I said, ‘I’ve never … I mean, I love the draft and all that stuff. But I’ve never even thought about scouting, but yeah, absolutely I’d have interest in that.’”

Daniel Jeremiah speaks during a news conference at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis on Feb. 25.

(Gregory Payan / Associated Press)

Soon enough, he was meeting with Ravens executives who gave him a volunteer assignment at the combine, very high-level stuff.

“I filled the candy jar every day,” he said. “I helped get the players into the interview rooms and all that.”

But he was on his way to eventually spending four years with Baltimore, then following player-personnel director Phil Savage to his GM job with Cleveland, scouting the entire country out of Southern California. When the Browns went 4-12 in 2008, Savage and his hires, Jeremiah among them, were shown the door.

Jeremiah spent two more years with Philadelphia as a West Coast scout before taking an analyst job with NFL Network. He could do the same type of player evaluation without the zig-zagging travel, much better for a father of four.

“I left scouting,” he said. “Scouting didn’t leave me.”

The draft is his Super Bowl, and he’s aware that it’s usually the biggest day in the lives of NFL hopefuls. He keeps that in mind, especially when he’s delivering an honest critique of a player.

“I’m very cognizant of that,” he said. “I don’t know that there’s a right way to do this job or a wrong way. I just know the way that I’ve approached it, and I feel like you could really eviscerate someone on what’s literally the best day of his life. Yeah, I will never do that.”

It’s a delicate balance, though, because he wants to remain true to his scouting beliefs.

“I might not necessarily have a player going to a team,” he said. “But I can try to explain to you why I think that team did what they did. That keeps me from saying a bunch of negative things about a player. I’m not trying to kill the kid, right?”

Said Yook: “There are 200-something guys getting drafted over these three days. You don’t suck if you get drafted in the NFL. Doesn’t matter if you’re pick No. 1 or the last pick. He understands that there’s a very small percentage of people who actually get to touch grass in the National Football League.”

What’s more, people can follow all sorts of twisting paths to success. Jeremiah needs no reminder. Preaching to the choir.

Production on Season 5 of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” will resume after filming was halted weeks ago amid a domestic violence investigation involving star Taylor Frankie Paul, The Times has learned.

Filming on the Hulu reality series paused in mid-March after the Draper City Police Department in Utah launched an investigation that involved Paul and her ex-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen and stemmed from an alleged incident in February. It was later revealed that Paul was under investigation for an alleged third domestic violence incident involving her and Mortensen in 2024, which was being led by police in West Jordan, Utah. The Salt Lake County district attorney’s office announced last week it would not be filing charges against Paul.

It has not been disclosed when cameras will pick back up or whether Paul or Mortensen will return to the series. In addition to Paul, the main cast includes Whitney Leavitt, Mayci Neeley. Jessie Draper, Jen Affleck, Mayci Neeley and Miranda McWhorter.

Paul was previously arrested in 2023 for another incident with Mortensen, which was partially documented on Season 1 of “Mormon Wives.”

“Here come the ugly parts of what healing actually looks like,” Paul wrote in a lengthy post Sunday on Instagram. “If you know me you know I’ll admit my parts, flaws, and faults. I’m well aware thats apart of it. We’ll get there. This public atrocity that I not only lived through once but twice now, on even a bigger scale was ultimately the cost to my freedom. I wouldn’t wish this upon my worst enemy or even the ones who publicized it. I cried on my knees in pain while also saying THANK YOU 🙏🏼”

When the investigation tied to the alleged February incident was made public, a video from the events involving the 2023 incident — showing Paul throwing barstools at Mortensen while her young daughter was present — was leaked to TMZ. It quickly led to ABC pulling Paul’s season-headlining “The Bachelorette” just three days before its March 22 premiere.