The lawyer for Modern Family star Ariel Winter has spoken out about how the 14-year-old actress is coping in the midst of a bitter family feud.
“Ariel is doing well and she has a lot of people who are loving her and supporting her at this time, and I’m pretty confident that she’ll fare well through all of this,” Amir Pichvai, Winter’s guardianship lawyer, told PEOPLE.
“She is obviously a very smart and articulate young lady and an accomplished actress.”
According to court papers filed Oct. 3, Winter claimed her mother, Chris Workman, subjected her to “ongoing physical abuse (slapping, hitting, pushing) and emotional abuse (vile name-calling, personal insults about minor and minor’s weight, attempts to ‘sexualize’ minor, deprivation of food, etc.) for an extended period of time.”
Faced with the allegations, a judge not only granted temporary custody to Winter’s older sister Shanelle Gray, but also ordered Workman not to come within 100 yards of her daughter.
As Celebuzz exclusively reported, Workman has claimed the real reason Winter went to court was because she attempted to break-up her daughter and her older boyfriend.
Winter’s mother filed an incident report with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department when she allegedly caught her daughter engaged in a sexual act with an 18-year-old man. Celebuzz has decided not to name him.
A representative for Winter did not want to comment about the case or the police filing when approached late Thursday.
In the incident report we obtained, police noted “suspicious circumstances, possible unlawful sex with minor,” following the interview with Winter’s mother on Oct. 6 — three days after the minor went to court.
“On 09-24-12, at approximately 2200-hours, she walked in the guest bedroom of her home and found her daughter, Ariel Winter Workman, in bed with boyfriend, [Name Redacted],” the three-page report claims.
Workman told the Sheriff explicit details about what she saw when she walked into the room at her Montrose, Calif. home.
“The informant (Workman) said the guest bedroom door was left wide open when she walked in,” Workman told police.
“According to the informant, Ariel and [Name Redacted] have been boyfriend/girlfriend for approximately 5 months. She has attempted to break them up because of their age difference.”
The next court hearing involving Winter and her mother is scheduled to be heart on Nov. 20.
