Bank robber-turned hotshot lawyer Shon Hopwood was arrested after his wife claimed he has beaten her so badly she's been hospitalized several times, DailyMail.com has learned.
Hopwood, who advised Donald Trump on prison reform and mentored the former president's daughter Tiffany at Georgetown University Law Center, was arrested last month after a suspicious cop refused to believe his story that his wife Ann Marie Hopwood was out of town.
Officer JP Mcardle's gut feeling turned out to be right. Hopwood had allegedly ordered his wife – who he had badly hurt in a fight three days earlier – to stay in the basement during the visit.
Now Hopwood faces charges that could land him back in prison – a place he thought he had left behind in 2009 when he went straight.
'I am more than sure if I did not stay and find Ann Marie, she would not be with us today,' Mcardle, the officer who found Hopwood's wife, told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview.
Shon Hopwood, 48, was arrested last month for allegedly beating his wife Ann Marie Hopwood, 47
Hopwood served 11 years in jail for a string of bank robberies that netted him $150,000
He rebuilt his life after his release, went to law school, and got a prestigious professorship at Georgetown. He's pictured meeting Donald Trump is 2019 at a prison reform summit
Hopwood, 48, who was profiled by Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes as a stellar example of how some criminals deserve a second chance, served 11 years in jail for a string of bank robberies that netted him $150,000. He also wrote a book on his life entitled Law Man.
While behind bars in federal prison in Pekin, Illinois, he taught himself law and successfully petitioned the Supreme Court twice on behalf of fellow inmates.
Hopwood mentored Tiffany Trump at Georgetown Law School
On his release he went to law school and then got a prestigious professorship at Georgetown and even advised former President Trump on prison reform. But now the world he built himself after beating his demons has come tumbling down due to the horrific allegations made by his 47-year-old wife – who is also an attorney.
He faces 180 days in prison for each count if found guilty of misdemeanor assault. Ann Marie has already been granted a temporary protection order meaning Hopwood has had to leave the family home.
And a spokeswoman for Georgetown Law Center told DailyMail.com: 'Prof. Shon Hopwood is currently not teaching at Georgetown Law.'
Cops were called to the Hopwood house in the Brookland area of Washington, DC, on September 24 after a 911 caller claimed Ann Marie had been locked in the basement. Authorities had been to the house several times before to check on claims of domestic abuse.
When they got there, Hopwood claimed his wife of 14 years was at a bluegrass concert in Laurel, Maryland, and said he couldn't get in touch with her because she wouldn't hear her phone over the loud music.
As another officer quizzed the lawyer, Mcardle – who had had several previous interactions with Ann Marie – went outside and texted her.
She told him she was actually at the back of the house. Mcardle found her there sobbing with a broken finger, chipped tooth and numerous other injuries, allegedly sustained during a fight three days earlier.
In that incident they had been at a Washington Nationals baseball game when, according to Ann Marie, he got angry and threw her phone out of the car window.
'I left the car to retrieve it and while I was doing that, he drove away with our kids in the car and left me behind,' she said in an affidavit.
'I eventually took an Uber home.'
Ann Marie filed a temporary protection order against her husband on September 27
In her petition for a protective order, Ann Marie details four separate occasions where Shon allegedly abused her
Ann Marie was seen sweeping outside her house but would not come to the door
When she got home they allegedly fought again with him 'shoving me and grabbing me and throwing me out'.
Hopwood is due in court on Wednesday on two assault charges. He has already pleaded not guilty.
When contacted by DailyMail.com, he said: 'Speak to my lawyer.' The attorney Sweta Patel did not immediately return a call.
Ann Marie was seen at her house but would not come to the door.
D.C. court officials told DailyMail.com on Monday that neither Shon nor his wife – who have two children, a 13-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl – had filed for divorce.
A DailyMail.com reporter spotted Ann Marie still wearing her wedding ring when she was out with a family friend in Washington, DC on Sunday afternoon.
Officer JP Mcardle was suspicious and refused to believe Hopwood's story that his wife Ann Marie Hopwood was out of town
Kroft interviewed Hopwood on 60 Minutes in 2019 in a segment called 'Redemption'.
'I think it's one of the most compelling stories I've ever covered,' the veteran journalist said at the time.
'The fact that he accomplished something, really, I don't think anybody else has ever accomplished before: getting out of prison and becoming a law professor.
'That's just not done.'
The show detailed how Hopwood had dropped out of college, joined the Navy where he drank his way through two years of service and then gone back to his hometown, David City, Nebraska, where he kept drinking and turned to drugs before starting on a spree of bank robberies.
'I wanted to live an exciting life,' Hopwood said. 'And shoveling cow manure in small-town Nebraska and living in my parents' bedroom wasn't quite cutting it.'
He was eventually arrested in 1998 after his fifth heist, and sentenced to 12 years and three months. Once inside he found an interest in the law.
In 2003 inmate John Fellers asked him to appeal his drug conviction to the Supreme Court and he spent months crafting a formal petition that was adopted by former US Solicitor General Seth Waxman – who called the brief one of the best he had ever seen.
Waxman agreed to take the case – but only if Hopwood would become part of his team from behind bars. He did and they won the case for Fellers.
Hopwood was released in 2009 and started his new life in the law at the University of Washington Law School.
Ann Marie claims her husband threw her against a wall causing a concussion, broke down their bedroom door to get to her and pushed her down the stairs
Hopwood earned a full scholarship to law school at the University of Washington through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is pictured with his wife at his graduation
Hopwood was profiled by Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes as a stellar example of how some criminals deserve a second chance
'Prison is not the place for personal growth,' he told Kroft. 'We warehouse people and then we kick them out into the real world with very little support and hope that a miracle happens.'
Now that 'warehousing' may be staring him in the face again. If he is found guilty he could be sentenced to 180 days on each misdemeanor charge.
Following his arrest other horrifying instances of Hopwood's alleged spousal abuse have been revealed in documents obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com.
The second charge of assault comes from an April fight as they argued about their taxes. 'He went to our bedroom where the tax paperwork was and threw it all over the floor,' Ann Marie said.
He then smacked, slapped and punched her and knocked her to the floor and told her not to leave the home, she said.
Two days later, she said, a friend brought her daughter home from a sleepover. 'I ran out and into her car and we went to the hospital.'
Other incidents mentioned in complaints include Hopwood throwing Ann Marie against a wall causing a concussion, breaking down their bedroom door to get to her and pushing her down the stairs.
Things got so bad that Ann Marie allegedly told a friend to call 911 if she received a text from her with a single emoji.
On a trip to New Orleans they allegedly got into a fight in their hotel room and Hopwood ended up leaving with the children.
'The next day, unbeknownst to me, Shon changed his and the children's plane tickets and came back to DC, even though we were supposed to have many more days on our trip' she said in her affidavit.
She had to go to an emergency dentist for her injuries caused in the fight, she said.
'I changed my ticket to come home,' she said. 'It was a very painful flight home.'
He also allegedly stranded his wife in Florida, Kentucky, New Jersey and in Arizona at the height of the Covid pandemic.
In one case, Hopwood allegedly told he after abandoning her that 'he hopes she gets raped or killed'.
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