Wife of Kings’ Slava Voynov told of other assaults, court filing says

Slava Voynov’s wife indicated to a nurse that the Kings defenseman had previously assaulted her, according a motion filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court.

After Voynov’s wife, Marta Varlamova, arrived at Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center in Torrance as midnight approached on Oct. 19 for treatment of a 1.2-inch cut above her left eye, a nurse asked if the injury was her husband’s fault.

Varlamova told the nurse that Voynov had pushed her into a television stand, according to the motion.

“[The nurse] asked Ms. Varlamova if this was the first time he had done that to her,” the motion says, citing a report by a Redondo Beach police officer. “Ms. Varlamova responded no.”

The motion was one of two filed Wednesday by Voynov’s attorneys seeking to exclude or limit statements made to police by Varlamova, the nurse and a social worker if the case goes to trial.

Voynov, who is suspended indefinitely with pay, is scheduled for a March 2 trial on a felony domestic violence charge in connection with the alleged incident.

During two recorded interviews Oct. 20, Varlamova told Redondo Beach police officers that Voynov hit her in the face and later threw her to the ground, then kicked and choked her and that he also shoved her into a flat-screen television at their home, according to police.

Attorneys for Voynov and Varlamova have previously characterized the alleged incident as an “accident.”

In Wednesday’s motion, Voynov’s attorneys said that Varlamova doesn’t understand English well and wasn’t provided a Russian translator during the interviews.

“Based on the totality of the circumstances,” the motion says, “Ms. Varlamova’s pretrial statements to the RBPD officers were involuntary and Mr. Voynov’s constitutional due process rights to a fair trial will be violated if these statements are admitted at trial.”

The court documents describe the questions posed by police as “coercive” and say the officers had “already decided upon a version of events.”

Voynov’s attorneys, Pamela Mackey and Craig Renetzky, in the documents also characterized the nurse’s questions to Varlamova at the hospital as “leading” and “unnecessary to the treatment of the cut.”

Notes from a social worker at the hospital excerpted in the court documents further detail the alleged altercation: “[Varlamova] reports that Mr. Voynov pushed her head into the TV stand … [Varlamova] admitted to LCM triage staff that this was not the 1st time she had been assaulted.”

Voynov’s attorneys called the social worker’s statements “hearsay within hearsay.”

The next hearing in Voynov’s case is Feb. 25. If convicted, he faces a maximum of nine years in state prison.