As a general rule, abuse victims should be given the benefit of the doubt, as instances in which such claims are filed falsely for revenge purposes are exceedingly rare.
And in situations where the perpetrator pled guilty because of a mountain of audio and video evidence, you should really believe the victim, because the best system we have available determined that they were telling the truth.
So at this point, there's no need to hide behind "allegedly" or "reportedly" -- you can just say Amber Portwood is an abuser.
As you probably recall, Amber was arrested in July following an altercation with former fiance Andrew Glennon at her Indiana home.
In the months that followed, a mountain of evidence of Portwood's abusive tendencies surfaced online.
Last month, Amber pled guilty after reaching a deal with prosecutors that would allow her to avoid jail time.
Shortly after the sentence was announced, Glennon took to social media and revealed that he had been "discouraged" by "a servant of justice" from proceeding with his case due to the fact that he’s “a man… and a large man.”
Glennon claimed that this is the reason Amber was permitted to sign a plea deal and was able to avoid imprisonment.
But Amber's most persistent defender/enabler is taking issue with that claim.
Responding to a tweet about the case from The Ashley's Reality Roundup, Amber's brother, Shawn Portwood, argued against Andrew's version of events:
“Well that doesn’t make any sense,” Shawn said to The Ashley on Twitter.
“He has no say as to whether or not the case goes to trial," he continued.
"Trust me he pushed and pushed but the prosecutor did not bring it to trial because there was no evidence.”
When Twitter users pushed back and pointed out that victims typically have some say in how the prosecution proceeds, Shawn became defensive:
“Right but at the end of the day he cannot force the prosecution to go to trial if the prosecution does not feel they have enough evidence to do anything,” he tweeted.
“So although he does have a say in The Plea he cannot force them to go to trial.”
Shawn continued talking in circles when Teen Mom fans pointed out that they "saw and heard plenty enough evidence” to convince them of Amber's guilt.
“Maybe you should have been the prosecutor then,” Shawn wrote.
“Because there was no real evidence other than what you heard or what she already admitted to," he continued.
"If the prosecutor believed they had an actual case they would have took it to trial. Instead they offered a plea deal for nothing."
No one was actually convinced by Shawn's flimsy arguments, of course, and several users encouraged him to drop the facade and admit that his sister had engaged in some atrocious behavior.
“Well @ShawnPortwood, you said the truth will come out and it did. Are you gonna apologize to Andrew and on social media?" wrote one such user.
"Cause we never believed you or Amber anyway,” she added.
“The truth is that she [pleaded] guilty to intimidation,” Shawn replied.
“Everyone said that she chased him with a machete but she was never charged with that because there was no evidence. No I will not apologize because all the stories that [Andrew] gave me were way different than what he gave others.”
He closed things out by arguing that sometimes evidence isn't really evidence of anything:
“Just because it’s submitted as evidence doesn’t mean it’s worth crap,” he said. “If it was worth a crap she wouldn’t have gotten off with just intimidation.”
With their ability to brazenly disregard the truth and muddy the waters with semantic nonsense, we assume Shawn and Amber are planning to enter the political arena in the very near future.
