Photo: TLC
His arrest record dates back to the 1990s.
By Rebekah Kuschmider — Written on Apr 05, 2020
Geoffrey Paschel made his TLC debut this weekend on 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days. TLC portrays him as a landlord in Tennessee who's looking for love to help him move on after tragedy struck him in 2018 when his baby son died. He's now in love with a woman named Varya from Russia and he plans to fly to Moscow to meet her in person. All of that is true but there are a lot of other facts about Paschel that the show isn't getting into at all.
It turns out Paschel has been married four times before his reality TV appearance but only three of his divorces are final. He was arrested as recently as last summer on a domestic assault charge. He is enmeshed in a very messy custody battle for his youngest child. And he has multiple drug arrests and domestic violence charges from the 1990s onward.
With every new revelation, audiences are wondering why TLC agreed to continue his contract and put him on the air, much less give him a sympathetic edit.
Here is Geoffrey Paschel's alleged criminal history. Keep reading for all the details.
Who is Geoffrey Paschel?
The made-for-TV version of Paschel is pretty unremarkable. He's a 41-year-old man living in Tennessee. He says he's a landlord who owns different properties and has his young adult sons living with him as we see on the show. He mentions being divorced twice and says he's had four children across those marriages, although his youngest son tragically died at 13 months old. He is now planning to travel to Russia to meet a woman named Varya and see if she's the love of his life.
But this narrative doesn't quite tell his whole story. For one thing, his Instagram account is loaded with photos from TV and movie sets. He tags himself as an actor and has been booking TV credits since 2017, which raises suspicions that he's in this for the exposure.Then there's the fact that he has an extensive arrest record, two additional marriages that he doesn't mention, at least two other children, and a pending assault case from June of 2019. Also, he isn't yet officially divorced from his fourth wife.
Paschel and his youngest son.
His early crimes were related to drugs and theft.
According to reports — and his own admission on the second episode of the show — Paschel was as young as 19 when he first started getting into trouble with the law. It's possible he had earlier arrests but his juvenile records would most likely be sealed. In 1997, he was picked up on a charge of possession with intent to sell controlled substances. Then in 2000, he was arrested on charges of larceny under $500. It's not clear what the result was of either of those crimes.
We do know that he was free in 2001 because he was arrested in Texas on an unknown federal offense and that landed him in federal prison for three years, something we were able to verify by doing a federal prison record search. At the time of his arrest, he had "five pounds of marijuana, two ounces of cocaine, $15,000, and a firearm.”
He allegedly abused his second wife.
We don't know anything about Paschel's first marriage but we do know he was married to his second wife (who we will refer to as wife #2) from 1998 until 2004. They have two kids, born in 1999 and 2000, and we believe those are the sons he introduced on 90 Day Fiancé: Before The 90 Days.
That marriage was allegedly riddled with problems. In 2004, when the kids were 3 and 5 years old respectively, police were allegedly called after Wife #2 took the younger child inside but left the 5-year-old in the car. When law enforcement arrived, they found drug paraphernalia and arrested Wife #2. Paschel was given full custody of both children at that time and the pair began divorce proceedings.
During the resulting custody battle, Wife #2 accused Paschel of abusing her during the relationship. "[Paschel] has committed assaults against the [Wife #2] in the presence of the minor children as well as committing acts of violence towards the minor children themselves. [Paschel] has repeatedly raped the [Wife #2]. [Paschel] has further threatened the lives of [Wife #2] and her family numerous times. [Wife #2] fears for her safety in the event that she should respond to [Paschel]’s legal proceedings in any manner," according to reports.
The couple reportedly ended up with mutual restraining orders that permitted them to interact only in the context of therapy for their children. Paschel was granted custody and Wife #2 could only have brief, supervised visits. In 2010, they allegedly each did things to violate the restraining orders and ended up with suspended sentences over that.
He was allegedly dealing drugs in his third marriage.
Paschel married a woman named Allison in 2007, according to a search of Tennesse marriage records. They had a child together in 2012 but separated in 2013. According to reports, their divorce was finalized in 2014 and they shared custody even after Wife #3 moved from Tennessee to Florida in 2016. Things took a turn in 2017 when Allison wanted to remarry and move to Seattle with her new husband, which violated the terms of their existing co-parenting arrangement.
Paschel filed a complaint that set off a legal battle which is still ongoing. Allegedly, Allison only wanted her child to spent time with Paschel if he agreed to share all his personal medical information, specifically if he was being prescribed opiate medications. If he was, Allison wanted him tested to see if he was taking them. Allison suspected he was selling opioid pills and possibly even using their child as part of his cover story to traffic the drugs. Paschel has allgedly thus far refused to cooperate with the drug testing orders and he doesn't have any arrests on charges of selling prescription medications.
He's still married to his fourth wife who allegedly fled to Canada to get away from him.
Pacshel got married to his fourth wife, Brittany, in 2014. Brittany is from Canada and holds joint Canadian and Jamaican citizenship. She was never able to legally live in American and Canada rejected Paschel over his felony history so they lived a nomadic lifestyle. They have two kids, both born abroad. First-born son Cayvan was born in Costa Rica in 2015 and has citizenship there, the US, Canada and Jamaica. Younger brother Kazhem was born in 2017 in Nicaragua and has the same kind of patchwork of citizenship as his older brother.
In 2017, not long after Kazhem was born, Brittany took both kids and moved back to Canada. She wanted out of the marriage, alleging Paschel abused her and the boys. Allison AKA wife #3, provided an affidavit in the divorce filing saying she, too, had been abused by Paschel during their marriage. Allegedly, he isolated Allison in their home, took her phone and limited her movements and interactions with people other than him.
Brittany is now no longer allowed to enter the US and she and Paschel started a drawn-out custody battle that is not yet resolved, according to reports. By 2018, a judge sent the boys to live with Paschel in Tennessee with Brittany getting custody of them one week per month. However, tragically, Kazhem passed away in 2018 due to unexplained causes. Brittany asked and received for primary custody of Cayvan in 2019, for reason we will go into below.
In 2019, Paschel was arrested for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend.
In June 2019, Paschel was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend in Knoxville, Tennessee. The unnamed woman had him arrested on charges of aggravated kidnapping, domestic assault, interference with emergency calls, and vandalism.
"He repeatedly bashed/slammed my head into the hardwood floors of my home," she alleged. "He dragged me through the house by my hair and continued throwing my body into walls and furniture. I know this because of blood on my walls, furniture..."
He had allegedly disabled her phone so she couldn't call for help and she had to run to a neighbor's to call 911. She was treated for a concussion that night. He faces charges of aggravated kidnapping, domestic assault, interference with emergency calls and vandalism. He will go to court about this case in March.
Unsurprisingly, Brittany, his fourth and current wife, used this as a reason to change their custody arrangement. She now has primary custody of their surviving son. Paschel says that Brittany and the unnamed Tennessee woman cooked this whole incident up to sabotage, frame him and take away custody of his son.
Does Varya know about Paschel's history? What about TLC?
It appears Paschel began filming for TLC soon after the 2019 assault arrest. Which is to say, Paschel, who is still married, may have had a girlfriend in Tennessee and was pursuing an international romance and a reality TV contract all at the same time. If either Varya or TLC knew what going on in his life or about his background of arrests and abuse, they haven't revealed it — yet. In a recent episode of the show, Paschel sits down with an ex-girlfriend named Mary to talk about his plan to visit Russia. She voices skepticism about a foreign affair then asks if Paschel has shared his entire history with Varya. After uncomfortably admitting that he hasn't, Paschel reveals that talking about his past is painful and difficult for him. Does that mean a full confession is coming later? We'll have to wait and see.
Paschel's Russian love interest Varya.
But wait! Paschel says there's more to the story.
Pachel himself took to social media to suggest that all the reporting about his past leaves out important context. However, he didn't fill in any of the gaps.
"I hear and see what is being said out there and it affects me tremendously. I want to add to the minuscule information that is being twisted but I don’t want to react but instead, I want to respond," he wrote. "I am fine with the truth, in fact, I am great with it. But it has yet to be told. To preserve a just outcome and continue forward, I have to refrain…for now. I promise to enlighten when I can and the present is not the time."
When a commenter asked if he was denying the facts laid out in court documents, Paschel replied: "they 100% are [true], but if you look at them ALL in context, they tell a whole different story." What that story might be, he did not say.
We don't know what will happen next with Paschel or his TLC storyline. 90 Day Fiancé: Before The 90 Days airs on Sunday nights on TLC.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. She is the creator of the blog FeminXer and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.