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Brody Dalle Avoids Jail But Is Sentenced to 60 Hours Community Service For Contempt.

By Jason Bruckner

The ugly court battle between Brody Dalle and Josh Homme sees Dalle narrowly avoid serving jail time.

Distillers founder Brody Dalle defended herself in a speech to a judge on Tuesday before he handed her down a sentence of 60 hours of community service and a $1,000 fine for her criminal contempt conviction in her custody battle with Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme.

Homme and his lawyers had asked for a stiffer penalty of five days in jail but to be “stayed” and set aside if she completed 120 hours of community labour, such as highway clean-up or graffiti removal, as opposed to community service at a nonprofit.

“I’m relieved by the court’s decision. I don’t believe anyone should go to jail or pick up trash for protecting her children,” Dalle stated after the hearing. “As a mother, I will always put my children first and protect them at all costs.”

Read:Brody Dalle and Josh Homme face off in court

In her comments to Judge Riff before sentencing, Dalle said she accepted and respected the court’s finding that she “willfully” failed to deliver her five-year-old son to Homme in early September in violation of a court order.

She was acquitted of a similar charge related to the couple’s older son after Judge Riff found that the 10-year-old boy decided on his own that he didn’t want to see his dad. The couple’s 15-year-old daughter was not a subject of the contempt trial after receiving a temporary restraining order against her dad in September.

“I didn’t withhold our children. Our children testified to that. Our children testified to the abuse they have experienced at the hands of their father and the reasons why they refused to go and continue to refuse to go,” Dalle said in her court statement yesterday.

Read:Josh Homme called as witness in ongoing custody dispute

She said Homme himself “testified to calling me a cunt, a cow, and telling me to, ‘fuck off forever.’ Does this sound like a person who wants to do the right thing by our children? He has taken no responsibility for his words and actions and the effect that they have had on our children.”

“Our Children testified to the abuse they have experienced at the hands of their father and the reasons why they refused to go and continue to refuse to go.”

Brody Dalle

In his own statement to the court Tuesday, Homme said he was “willing to take responsibility for things that I do,” but he wanted “justice” and ‘one set of rules for both sides.’

“I’ve suffered a lot of parental alienation in a short period of time,” Homme told Judge Riff. “This family is in grave danger and so fractured and ripped apart. All I want to do is see my kids. I want my mother to see her grandkids. I want my father to see his grandkids.”

Dalle disputed the accusation of “parental alienation,” calling it a “strategy used in family court by abusers to take the onus off the abuser and place it onto the victims.” She said the breakdown in their co-parenting left her “deeply saddened.”

As he issued his sentence Judge Riff urged both parents to find common ground to resolve their issues related to co-parenting.

“All I want to do is see my kids. I want my mother to see her grandkids. I want my father to see his grandkids.”

Josh Homme

“What I’m hearing, I hope, is that (both sides) want the same thing. They want a healed family with three quite lovely children who need the benefit of two loving parents. Both sides want that,” Riff said.

Dalle, 42, filed for divorce from Homme, 48, in 2019 amid allegations he “headbutted” her while “highly intoxicated.” They reached a shared custody agreement for their three kids in October 2020, but new allegations of misconduct and of domestic violence surfaced over the summer.

Read:Brody Dalle found guilty of contempt

In September, domestic violence restraining orders were filed against Homme on behalf of his two sons, alleging physically and verbally abusive behaviour and drinking while driving. It was originally reported that Dalle’s signature appeared on those filings, but Dalle testified that her signatures were forged on that paperwork. Homme accused Dalle’s boyfriend Gunner Foxx of forging the signatures and filing the restraining orders.

The parties are due back in court on December 3 to determine where Dalle will fulfil her community service requirement. Future court hearings will centre on remaining accusations of domestic violence and requested revisions to the couple’s 50-50 custody arrangement.

Court-appointed monitors were hired to supervise each parent’s custodial time since Homme’s visits with his five-year-old son resumed in mid-October.

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