Woman: Livan Hernandez Abused Me

The ex-girlfriend of Livan Hernandez testified Monday that the Florida Marlins pitcher punched her, slapped her, kicked her and once pinned her down and plucked the hairs off her head one by one.

Alina Elgarresta said that even after the abuse began, she accepted $22,000 for a down payment on a Porsche and an engagement ring worth almost $17,000 from last year's World Series MVP.

Elgarresta appeared in Miami-Dade Circuit Court seeking a permanent restraining order against Hernandez.

Hernandez, through his attorney Manny Vazquez, has denied physically abusing Elgarresta.

The pitcher attended the hearing, but was not scheduled to testify until Tuesday. He and his lawyer declined to comment after Elgarresta testified for 90 minutes Monday.

Hernandez, 23, signed a $6.5 million contract with the Marlins after defecting from Cuba in 1995. He pitched Monday against the Milwaukee Brewers.

The couple began dating in November 1997 and broke up for good in June.

Elgarresta, a 25-year-old broadcast major at Miami-Dade Community College, testified that the pitcher tried to control her with expensive gifts and threatened to take them away if she didn't do what he wanted.

Elgarresta also testified she was pregnant with Hernandez's baby before having an abortion in March.

"I didn't want to have anything to do with him," Elgarresta told Vazquez when asked why she had the abortion. "He wanted me to have (the baby)."

Elgarresta said she told Hernandez in February she needed time alone and went to his apartment to pick up some of her belongings.

Hernandez responded by "slapping me in the head, pulling my hair, holding my arms so I couldn't leave," she said.

She said he paid $22,000 as a down payment on a Porsche in May. She planned to make the monthly payments to keep the car, which was registered in Hernandez's name.

After a fight in which she saiHernandez ripped a necklace from her neck, he had the Porsche towed.

He reported it stolen June 17 after Elgarresta, who still had the keys, took it back.

When police went to retrieve the car, she told them about the abuse, Elgarresta said. The officer said she should fill out a complaint, which she did five hours later, she said.

Hernandez's lawyer tried to portray Elgarresta as someone attracted to sports stars and celebrities and said the accusations were over the Porsche.

She said that she once dated former Miami Heat guard Bimbo Coles, who now plays with the Golden State Warriors, and once had lunch with movie star Eddie Murphy.

Elgarresta testified that Hernandez was hot-tempered and jealous, once ripping up her diary because it had the names and phone numbers of other men.

She said he also once smashed the windows of a Mercedes and jumped repeatedly on its hood after he bumped the fender while trying to block her from leaving a parking garage.

She testified that he held her in his Miami Beach apartment against her will, dragging her into his bedroom where he ripped up a pair of her jeans, pulled a blouse off her and then tried to find scissors to cut off her long, blondish-brown hair, she said.

She also claimed Hernandez stalked her, often sitting for hours outside her mother's Coral Gables home. She ended up moving in with her father and changing her phone number to try to escape him, she said.

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