Chef of buzzy LA restaurant Horses accused by chef-partner of killing a kitten, hurting a dozen extra animals, and home abuse in heated divorce battle

• A heated divorce battle is effervescent in one among Los Angeles’ trendiest eating places.
• Chef Elizabeth Johnson accused chef-partner Will Aghajanian of home and animal abuse.
• Thus far, a choose has granted her requests for a restraining order and has rejected his request for one.

Amid a heated divorce battle, the chef-partner of a stylish Los Angeles restaurant alleged in a restraining order request that her ex-partner bodily abused her, killed their kitten, and harmed a dozen extra animals.

Elizabeth Johnson, who runs the restaurant Horses with chef and co-founder Will Aghajanian, detailed abuse she claims that she and several other home pets suffered throughout her marriage with him in divorce information filed within the Los Angeles Superior Court docket and first reported by the Los Angeles Instances.

Aghajanian’s lawyer denied all of Johnson’s allegations to Insider and mentioned that the case was about cash.

Johnson claimed in a November 2022 request for a short lived Home Violence Restraining order that Aghajanian killed a kitten of their family, as a part of a sinister sample of abuse towards her and their pets.

Aghajanian has levied that he and his canines have been the victims of Johnson’s abuse, in a dueling restraining order submitting, filed after Johnson’s.

Horses, which opened in 2021 to glowing critiques, is framed to have an egalitarian chef rotation and a thousand-person-long ready checklist. It’s frequented by celeb fare together with the likes of Jay-Z and Beyonce.

However simply over a 12 months after opening, Johnson claimed in court docket filings that she was in hiding, fearing for her life from Aghajanian, her husband, and culinary companion at Horses. The destiny of their upcoming New York restaurant Froggy’s can be unclear amid the divorce battle.

Horses didn’t instantly return Insider’s request for remark. 

In her request for the restraining order, Johnson mentioned that someday she heard a loud noise and located the cat with a big laceration to its head, whereas Aghajanian mentioned one among their three canines had attacked it, per court docket paperwork.

Aghajanian didn’t permit her to take the cat to the veterinarian, she alleged.

“A number of days later, I caught Will violently shaking the cat late at night time, and he died the subsequent day,” Johnson mentioned within the submitting. “Will put the lifeless cat within the trash and insisted on retaining the corpse in the home.” 

Johnson claimed that in their time collectively, he abused “as much as 14 animals,” and that he emotionally and bodily abused her.

In December 2022, a choose accepted her restraining order, and in Might it was reissued.

Aghajanian claimed that Johnson routinely threatened their canines’ lives and in a number of situations, “put a metallic spatula on the recent oily griddle, then pushed it towards my forearm, severely burning it,” and leaving a scar, based on court docket filings. 

He claimed that Johnson kicked him on a number of events, and he accused her of “threatening to kill my canine Poncho,” or telling him that she made, “Pancho oil capsules.”

Johnson’s lawyer didn’t instantly reply to Insider’s request for remark.