True Crime YouTube star Jonathan Lee Riches, aka JLR Investigates, is accused of brutally beating, strangling and threatening to kill a former girlfriend, she claims in court documents.
In a sworn petition filed in Arkansas, Jaime Tennille Phillips claims Riches, 49, carried out a violent attack on Christmas Eve 2025, capping what she describes as a years-long pattern of abuse that included him repeatedly strangling her.
The filing, obtained by The Post, alleges Riches — a convicted felon who spent 10 years in federal prison over a credit card fraud scheme — was in a relationship with Phillips beginning early 2023 that spiraled into “a persistent and escalating pattern of domestic abuse, coercive control, intimidation, financial exploitation, and physical violence.”
According to the handwritten affidavit, the alleged Dec. 24 assault left Phillips with “extreme injuries, including broken nose + septum, significant trauma to my head and ribs,” requiring emergency medical care, CT scans and X-rays — and that she will need reconstructive surgery.
Phillips claims Riches assaulted her on multiple occasions, beat her with a closed fist in a separate alleged Aug. 2025 attack, strangled her roughly two dozen times, and threatened to kill her if she reported him, the filing alleges.
She also alleges ongoing harassment after the Christmas incident, which took place in Washington state, including threats, intimidation, and financial abuse.
On Jan. 21, 2026, the court issued an order of protection, finding there was sufficient evidence Phillips faced an “immediate and present danger of domestic abuse.”
Riches has not responded to the allegations and he and his lawyer did not return The Post’s requests for comment.
Chelan County Sheriff’s Office in Washington sent The Post an incident report, which says they had probable cause to arrest Riches, but he had left the state. He has not formally been charged in relation to the incident and no warrant appears to have been issued for his arrest.
Phillips herself has a colorful past, having been accused in 2017 of fabricating a story about being impregnated by Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore as a teenager, which she tried to get the Washington Post to run. She could not be reached by The Post for comment.
In an email to The Post, she claimed: “He is a dangerous man and unfortunately I learned the hard way to not underestimate what he’s capable of doing.”
Riches reinvented himself as “JLR Investigates” — a YouTube channel which has grown to more than half a million subscribers — around three years ago after a lifetime of frauds, fakeries and manipulation.
He describes himself as a “fearless investigator” and inserts himself into high-profile investigations to live stream.
Most recently he has been broadcasting from Tucson, Arizona, outside the house of missing Nancy Guthrie.
“He’s basically a big celebrity in the true-crime community,” fellow True Crime streamer Alina Smith told The Post.
Riches has gained a reputation for being one of the most persistent streamers, filming for up to 15 hours a day, responding to questions in real time and accepting money from viewers to complete tasks such as zooming in on certain parts of a crime scene.
The more subscribers he gets, the more profitable his YouTube videos become, regardless of whether the information he reports is fact or fiction.
Other streamers have estimated to The Post he makes up to $30,000 a week with his persistent “boots on the ground” approach.
But his audience are likely unaware of just how sinister Riches’ past is.
In 2019 he openly admitted being a troll and fabricating highly sensitive information, after he was called out for pretending to be Jewish and giving a fake backstory at a Trump rally.
“I don’t think about the long-term consequences as far as disinformation or offending anyone,” Riches told The Huffington Post in 2019.
“The disinformation that I want, I can put out there. The next mass shooting, before they identify the shooter, I can set up 10 Twitter accounts looking like news sites and then create whoever I want as the shooter … Vulnerable, gullible people will see that, they think it’s from a news site and then they will copy it and tweet it out.”
Riches’ operation has drawn criticism from authorities and journalists alike as he is part of a growing ecosystem of YouTube crime-scene streamers who monetize tragedy by broadcasting from active investigations.
However, Riches’ notoriety long predates the livestream era.
Fraud ring and federal prison
According to federal court records, Riches was indicted in 2003 in the Southern District of Texas alongside several co-defendants for a credit card fraud scheme.
The indictment claimed the conspirators used stolen financial data to obtain money and property through fraudulent transactions. Riches was arrested in Florida in February 2003 and brought to Texas to face the charges, entering a guilty plea to conspiracy and wire-fraud counts in September that year.
A federal judge sentenced him to 125 months in prison for wire fraud and 60 months for conspiracy — to run concurrently — along with $92,680 in restitution to victims, according to the criminal docket.
‘Most litigious inmate’
While incarcerated, Riches flooded federal courts with thousands of bizarre, frivolous, lawsuits targeting politicians, companies, public figures and celebrities — including one against the Kardashian family for allegedly participating in al-Qaida training.
The cases were quickly dismissed.
The sheer volume of Riches’ lawsuits — estimated at over 4,000 — ultimately forced federal prosecutors to seek an unprecedented nationwide injunction against him, to prevent him from suing. He was also banned from having paper in his cell.
In response, Riches went on a hunger strike for 22 days, and a warden had him force-fed through a tube.
Sandy Hook hoax
After being released in 2012, Riches returned to Pennsylvania on supervised release — but almost immediately found himself back in legal trouble.
He traveled to Newtown, Connecticut, three days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre – that left 20 first graders and six staff members dead. He attended a memorial where he falsely claimed to be the uncle of gunman Adam Lanza, according to local authorities and court filings.
He said he was “Jonathan Lanza”, and made unsubstantiated claims about the shooter’s mental health, which were quickly debunked.
Three days later, Riches posted a YouTube video of the trip in which he attempted to approach Lanza’s home before being stopped by a police blockade.
“We are truth seekers, and we are going to find out why Adam was mind-controlled and manipulated to go in and allegedly shoot little kids in Sandy Hook Elementary School, and why this happened,” Riches said in the clip, as reported by the New Haven Register.
A few weeks later, Riches found himself back behind bars for violating the terms of his probation by crossing state lines. From there, his phoney lawsuits kept coming.
In March 2016, he filed a civil action against representative Gabrielle Giffords, posing as the man who shot her and killed six people several years earlier.
According to a criminal complaint, he posed as Jared Loughner, the gunman who tried to assassinate Giffords. The complaint sought $25 million. Riches pleaded guilty to a charge of making false statements, according to court records, and was sentenced to five years’ probation.
He later told the Arizona Republic that he filed the fake lawsuit as a joke to entertain himself in prison.
Riches was released from federal prison in May 2016, according to the Bureau of Prisons inmate locator.
However, his headline-grabbing stunts and questionable antics continued to evolve.
During Bill Cosby’s trial in September 2016, he showed up in court repeatedly, offering the disgraced rapist Jell-O each time he entered. Weeks later, he surfaced in Florida alongside then–gubernatorial hopeful Andrew Gillum, posing as a Black Lives Matter protester.
Some of his most audacious acts came from disguising himself as both a Muslim and Jewish attendee at political events — including rallies for now-President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. He confirmed to the Huffington Post he was “an atheist from a Christian family,” and confirmed at that time he didn’t “practice any religion.”
Live stream ‘Investigator‘
In recent years Riches has attempted to reinvent himself online under the brand “JLR Investigates.”
While he markets himself as a crime-scene investigator chasing the truth behind high-profile cases — critics say his appearances often amount to nothing but exploitation, interference, and the spreading disinformation.
In one such incident, a business card was left on Nancy Guthrie’s front door. Riches told his viewers she might have been at the center of an active elder abuse case prior to her disappearance.
The card was from a case manager for Arizona’s Adult Protective Services division who later confirmed it had dropped by after she was reported missing, so she could contact the agency if she returned home safely.
“A lack of information leads to speculation,” Riches told The Republic while livestreaming outside Guthrie’s home in February.
The practice mirrors a growing trend highlighted in recent reporting by The Post about YouTubers who earn thousands of dollars from livestreams outside active investigations, broadcasting theories and commentary to viewers.
Law-enforcement officials and victims’ advocates have warned the practice can complicate investigations and implicate innocent people and victims, wreaking havoc on their lives.
Yet, for some top-earning live streamers like Riches, it appears notoriety and infamy can actually work in their favor.
Crime Seen Collective co-founder Alina Smith told The Post she had seen fans of Riches fly in from interstate and show up at crime scenes simply for a meet and greet with him. Many of them came bearing gifts, she said. Others simply donate cash to him online. “They’re obsessed with him,” she said.
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