Without A Trace: Poppy Montgomery's Ex-Housekeeper Unable to Track Down Actress Over Alleged Unpaid Wages, Demands $117k in Court
July 14 2023, Published 11:15 a.m. ET
Poppy Montgomery has been accused of blowing off a lawsuit filed by her ex-housekeeper and now the Without a Trace actress is facing being hit with a massive 6-figure default judgment, RadarOnline.com has learned.
According to court documents obtained by RadarOnline.com, Montgomery and her husband Shawn Sanford’s ex-employee, Miriam Trejo, asked the court to award her $117k.
The ex-housekeeper had struggled to serve the couple claiming a process server she hired couldn't find them.
The process server drove out to addresses previously connected to Montgomery but she no longer lived at either of the homes. Trejo asked for permission to serve the couple via an alternate method. The judge signed off on the ex-housekeeper posting a notice about the lawsuit in a local paper.
Despite the notice, Trejo said the actress and her husband have still not responded. As a result, she now wants the default judgment entered.
On Instagram, Montgomery has been active. In the past couple of months, she has posted photos of her family hanging out in Malibu on social media.
As we first reported, Trejo sued the 50-year-old ex-Without a Trace star for failure to provide meal breaks, failure to pay all wages upon termination, and failure to pay all wages earned. The employee said worked for the couple from 2014 until she was terminated on May 11, 2022.
In court documents, Trejo said she worked at the couple’s home in Pacific Palisades, California. Her daily responsibilities included cleaning, cooking, and taking care of the couple’s children.
In her suit, Trejo said she was paid $25 per hour and worked, on average, five days a week. At the time, she claimed the couple had her working 13 hours per day. However, she said they never paid her overtime.
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Further, Trejo said she was never provided uninterrupted, 30-minute meal breaks during her employment. “She was unable to take her rest breaks because she was constantly needed to perform her duties,” her lawyer claimed
The ex-housekeeper’s lawyer alleged, “[Trejo] has been deprived of her rightfully earned compensation for meal and rest break violations as a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ failure and refusal to pay said compensation.
Poppy and her husband, a Microsoft executive, have been together since 2011 and got married at Disneyland in 2014. The Australian-born actress starred in the hit CBS drama Without a Trace from 2002 to 2009 and later on Unforgettable on the same network.
