Urlacher's Ex Sues For $125M, Claims He Portrayed Her As A Killer

WILLOW SPRINGS, IL -- Another chapter was added to sad saga of former Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher and one-time girlfriend Tyna Karageorge’s ongoing custody battle over their 12-year-old son. Karageorge filed a defamation lawsuit on Jan. 12 in Cook County Circuit Court over claims that Urlacher, his attorneys, and a Chicago Tribune reporter schemed to portray her as a murder "suspect" or “person of interest” after her husband committed suicide in 2016, so that Urlacher could gain custody of their son. Karageorge is representing herself.

The civil lawsuit names Urlacher and his attorneys Donald Schiller, Leslie Arenson, Anita Ventrelli and their law firm, Schiller, Ducanto and Fleck, LLC, and another attorney, Thomas Raines in her 34-page civil complaint. Karageorge is also suing Chicago Tribune reporter David Haugh and the Chicago Tribune on grounds of defamation of character and presenting her in a false light. Karageorge, a Joliet native who now lives in Willow Springs, is asking for $125 million in damages.

Karageorge, formerly Tyna Robertson, claims to have had an on-and-off dating relationship with Urlacher. They had a son together who was born in 2005, but the couple never married. A month after their son was born, Urlacher filed for custody. Their custody dispute played out in news headlines for the next few years, but eventually they settled into a co-parenting relationship.

A few months before Urlacher was set to marry America’s Next Top Model contestant Jennipher Frost in March 2016, the complaint states that Urlacher told Karageorge he wanted to get back together, but she declined. Karageorge, who by then had a second son from another relationship, married Ryan Karageorge in September 2016.

After agreeing to send their son to spend part of his winter break with Urlacher in Idaho and Arizona, Tyna and Ryan Karageorge were returning home early from a party on Dec. 29, 2016, because Ryan had apparently become “highly intoxicated.” The lawsuit contends that Ryan physically assaulted Tyna once inside the house, headbutting her and placing his hands around her neck. She also claims her husband broke down a door after she had locked herself in a room at their Willow Springs home. A few minutes later, she heard a gunshot and saw her husband lying on the floor.

But in the immediate days following Ryan’s death, Karageorge says Urlacher and his attorneys “conspired, plotted, persecuted and defamed/slandered” her with false statements in an attempt to destroy her. She also maintains that the defendants tried to influence the Willow Springs Police Department into initiating a first-degree murder investigation, portraying Karageorge as a “suspect” or “person of interest” in her husband’s death, repeated by Chicago Tribune columnist David Haugh.

Using “entrapment and blackmail,” Karageorge alleges that Urlacher, playing upon the tragedy of her husband’s passing, gained temporary custody of their 11-year-old son in January 2017 and had him “unlawfully removed in less than 35 minutes" from Illinois to Arizona. Karageorge says she hasn’t seen her son since. Ryan Karageorge’s death was later ruled a suicide by the Cook County Medical Examiner.

“The atrocities that the Defendants have done equates to a modern day lynching and witchhunt,” Karageorge states in her complaint. She alleges that the defendants’ actions were only intended to “assassinate Tyna.” Because she is now perceived as a “murderer,” her neighbors have stopped waving to her.

Schiller, one of Urlacher’s attorneys, told the Tribune that the lawsuit was “essentially a reiteration of the same false statements, twisting of facts and quotes out of context that she has claimed and filed in Court proceedings all during this case. None were found to have merit.”

Photo: Brian Urlacher | Jordan Strauss/Invision for NFL/AP