Lieutenant Governor Candidate Teddy Daniels Hit With Protective Order After Abuse Claims by Wife

Daniels is accused of threatening his wife and child, and saying he would kill the family dog.

Pennsylvania Republican lieutenant governor candidate Teddy Daniels was ordered this week to stay away from his home after his wife made claims of physical and mental abuse in obtaining a protective order.

Rolling Stone reports that Daniels, 47, was accused of threatening his wife and their young child. Daniels reportedly said he would kill the family dog and grabbed his wife by the shirt.

His wife also told a Wayne County judge that Daniels stalked her at work, “screaming at me, making me cry” and that he continually cursed at her and threatened to throw her out of the home.

The judge granted a temporary protection from abuse order to Daniels’ wife on Tuesday. Under the order, Daniels was removed from his home in a gated community in Lake Ariel and forbidden from having any contact with her. The judge also gave Daniels’ wife temporary custody of their child and ordered Daniels to turn over his guns.

Daniels, 47, is one of nine candidates seeking the GOP lieutenant governor nomination in Pennsylvania’s May 17 primary, running with the endorsement of gubernatorial candidate, state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Franklin).

Mastriano has remained mum on the matter. One of his opponents in the governor’s race, Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman (R-Centre), has called on Mastriano to address the situation.

On Wednesday, Daniels posted a video to Facebook in which he baselessly accused Rolling Stone of targeting him with bogus calls to police.

“I have been hit with numerous cannon balls at point blank range,” Daniels said in the video. “Folks, I ain’t dropping out of nothing, and I ain’t quitting.”

Daniels’ wife told authorities in her request for the protective order that he had “numerous” guns and knives in the house. “I am afraid of him and what he will do to me,” she wrote.

She sought the protective order after she said Pennsylvania State Police troopers came to their house for a wellness check on Sunday. After they left, she said, Daniels was “verbally abusive” and “became very agitated about who called the state troopers.”

She said she then called state police, who suggested that her husband go elsewhere for the night to “cool things down.”

At 6 am Monday, she wrote, her husband returned to the house, asked if she planned to seek a protective order and tried to prevent her from leaving, she wrote. Daniels then followed her to the courthouse, she wrote.

Last August, she said, Daniels grabbed her shirt, pulled her to his face and said, “Don’t you ever speak to me like that,” the petition said. He also made two previous attempts to take his own life, his wife said.

A hearing on the protective order was scheduled for next week.

Daniels was embroiled in controversy last week after a lieutenant governor debate with state Rep. Russ Diamond (Lebanon).  Daniels threatened Diamond over a Facebook post raising questions about his background because it mentioned his wife.

“I’m curious to see what you’re going to do with a man standing in front of you, now that you want to bring my wife into things,” Daniels told Diamond. “You are the lowest, scummiest, dirtiest form of a thing on the face of the earth. And boy you poked the wrong bear.”

The Friends of Russ Diamond Facebook group posted a six-minute video with documents questioning Daniels’ disability payments, police career, and decision to sell a debt-free home just a few months after a veterans’ charity gave him the deed.

“I find it disturbing that Mr. Daniels is portraying himself as some sort of great American hero,” Diamond said in the video. “And even more disturbing that some decent, patriotic, hard-working Republican voters are falling for it.”

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.