This is one of the more inneresting love triangles we’ve heard about!
Last month, ex-baseball pro Ben Zobrist filed a lawsuit in Nashville against pastor Byron Yawn for allegedly having an affair with his wife of 15 years, Julianna Zobrist. According to the complaint, the ex-athlete is seeking $3 million in compensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages from Byron, who he claims had an “inappropriate sexual relationship” with Julianna.
The suit states that Byron was the Senior Pastor and Elder at Community Bible Church and was eventually named Executive Director of Ben’s organization known as the Patriot Forward Charity. The former MLB player described Byron as the couple’s trusted “spiritual mentor,” who had guided the couple through pre-marital counseling in 2005, and then marriage counseling in 2013 due to issues with “pornography.”
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The two-time World Series winner claimed that Byron started speaking “daily” with Julianna — an inspirational speaker and author — beginning in August 2018, and things between the two eventually became romantic. The suit reads:
“Unbeknownst to [Ben], in September 2018, during the time that he was providing pastoral counseling to [Ben], [Byron] also began secretly pursuing an intimate relationship with [Ben’s] wife.”
Ben maintains Byron and Julianna’s “romantic involvement” escalated in the spring of 2019, “when he began meeting her for sex.” Their affair allegedly continued until the spring of 2020, “all the while concealing it from the Plaintiff, his counselee,” the suit claims.
The allegedly duplicitous duo are accused of using “burner phones” to secretly communicate. Ben’s legal team alleges that Byron “exploited” his counseling sessions with Ben to “deceptively” encourage the former baseball star to “give his wife some space,” and that the pastor used the confidential counseling information to “his own self-seeking advantage” and “further cement his illicit relationship” with Julianna.
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In May 2019, Byron’s wife, Robin Yawn, allegedly found the pastor’s burner phone and told Ben she suspected Byron and Julianna were having “an emotional relationship, but nothing physical.” After learning this, Ben forfeited four months of the 2019 baseball season to “focus entirely on repairing his marital relationship,” which his lawyers say cost him $8 million in income.
Despite his efforts, Ben filed for divorce from Julianna later in 2019 — but it wasn’t until their divorce proceedings in June 2020 when he learned about his wife’s sexual relationship with their pastor, as Julianna allegedly admitted to the infidelity at that time. Meanwhile, Robin filed for divorce from Byron in June 2020, before he filed in July 2020.
Unfortunately, the accusations don’t stop there: in the same suit, Ben also accuses Byron of taking advantage of his Patriot Forward charity, where the pastor worked in content development, copyrighting, and more. Ben accuses Byron of using his role in the charity as an “excuse” to meet with Julianna.
Byron was terminated as Executive Director of the charity in March 2019, when he was being paid $3,500 a month. Ben claims in the suit that he then “fraudulently” continued to receive his salary until May 2019, cashing checks “with full knowledge that his position had been terminated.”
Wow, this one is messy, y’all! Thoughts on this lawsuit, Perezcious readers? Hopefully everything gets resolved soon, as the estranged spouses share three children: Zion, 12, Kruse, 9, and Blaise, 5.
[Image via MLB]
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