Bethenny Frankel is not happy with her ex Jason Hoppy‘s defense lawyer Robert Wallack‘s allegations made in court, where he attempted to use the late Dennis Shields‘ death on Aug. 10 to somehow imply that “this raises serious concerns about Ms. Frankel’s parental judgment,” Us Weekly reported. A source close to Bethenny told us EXCLUSIVELY how she feels this new legal strategy in their custody battle is a manipulation of Shields’ death. “Bethenny is sickened by Jason’s latest claims in court, it’s a low blow, even by his standards, to try and use Dennis’ death to his advantage,” our source said. “Bethenny thinks it just shows Jason’s true colors though, how manipulative he is, and how he will stop at nothing to lash out at her.”
When it comes down to it, Bethenny is still mourning the loss of Dennis — which makes Jason’s legal move particularly disturbing to her. “Bethenny is still reeling from losing Dennis,” our source went on to say. “It’s really disgraceful that Jason would pull a stunt like this, although she really shouldn’t expect anything less from him at this stage.” We reached out to Bethenny’s rep and they declined to comment. After Jason’s legal team asked for her to be drug tested, even the judge thought they were being vicious and reportedly said, “now you’re throwing ‘grenades.’”
We reported earlier how Dennis allegedly told paramedics and law enforcement who arrived at the scene that he’d taken some of his prescribed oxycodone in addition to Vicodin and a sleeping pill, according to TMZ, in an attempt to ease his back pain he was experiencing after an injury.
UPDATE: The Chief Medical Examiner confirmed to HollywoodLife that Dennis’ death has been ruled as “undetermined,” and an autopsy was not performed because of a “religious objection, upheld by law in such instances where no criminality is suspected.”