Mike Johnson, a journalist from PWInsider.com, has gained access to an ongoing civil lawsuit filed by Armando Alejandro Montalvo, the man who was shot and arrested outside the WWE Performance Center in Florida in August 2015 and against whom WWE requested and obtained a protective order. In the lawsuit, filed in May in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida (Orlando division), Montalvo names as co-defendants World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE), WWE Performance Center manager David Bailey, the Orange County Sheriff's Office (OCSO), officers Cpl. S. Wahl and Deputy D. Richardson, Aspire Health Partners Inc., and Walmart Inc.
The 11-page document includes several charges and alleges a coordinated conspiracy between the company and law enforcement involving excessive use of force, illegal chemical restraint, and pretextual arrests. Montalvo claims that during the incident on August 31, 2015, outside the Performance Center, he was unarmed, intoxicated, and wearing headphones. According to the lawsuit, WWE staff mocked him and bypassed standard 911 dispatch lines to directly contact off-duty officers.
Montalvo alleges that an off-duty officer ambushed him and shot him, even though a WWE employee on the scene verbally acknowledged he was unarmed. Additionally, he claims that a knife was planted after the shooting to retroactively justify the use of force, although no weapon was ever recovered.
He also accuses Aspire Health Partners of acting as a state actor under Florida's Baker Act (Chapter 394) and forcibly administering heavy psychotropic medications ("polypharmacy") to keep him sedated. According to Montalvo, this was done in bad faith to mentally incapacitate him, preventing him from pursuing a court-approved criminal appeal and violating his constitutional rights through repeated involuntary commitments.
The lawsuit also mentions a separate incident on June 4, 2020, at a Walmart on East Colonial Drive, where Montalvo alleges that store management conspired with arriving officers to falsely inculpate him with criminal trespass charges. The report notes that the State Attorney's Office ultimately dropped all charges.
In August 2015, Montalvo was arrested for trespassing after being warned to leave WWE property, leading the company to request and receive a protective order to prevent him from trespassing at the Orlando Performance Center, following multiple incidents where Montalvo appeared demanding a job, threatening talent, and even throwing and spreading feces in the building.
On August 31, 2015, Montalvo returned to the Performance Center. Video footage shown on local media depicted him acting as if he were a wrestler, banging on doors and demanding to be trained by the company. When local police arrived, Montalvo confronted them and ended up shot. He was hospitalized and later charged with aggravated assault on an officer, resisting arrest, and trespassing. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.
At a press conference following the 2015 incident, the Sheriff described Montalvo as "obsessed" with a WWE female wrestler. Prior to his arrest at the WWE PC, Montalvo had previously been arrested for assaulting a person over 65, violating a domestic protection order, fraud, and assaulting an officer. In 2017, he was arrested again in Orlando outside the Independent Bar and charged with assault after placing a vacuum hose with one end in his pants and the other under a woman's skirt. At that time, it was determined that the incident constituted a violation of his previous bail for the Performance Center arrest.
In a February 2017 court hearing, Montalvo's father stated that his son suffers from borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia, and without medication, he tends to have outbursts. Montalvo claimed in court that he was actually the victim, as he had been shot by the police.
In April 2018, WWE requested and received a permanent protective order against Montalvo after he posted on social media what was interpreted as a threat against the company.
Montalvo requests a jury trial and seeks compensatory and punitive damages, as well as a judicial declaration against all named parties. Court records do not indicate that any of the defendants have been served with the lawsuit yet.
ES
US
