Judge to rule on dueling restraining orders

Will decide Monday whether a UCF senior and OPD officer must legally stay apart

For months, Isabelle Meunier says she has been trying to avoid Orlando police Officer Zachary Price. But he is everywhere, she said.

He would sign up for off-duty security details at the hospital where she works, an outdoor venue near her apartment, the country club where her parents live and at a bar she frequents, she said. He gets his coffee at the shop where she studies. And he’s often assigned to direct traffic on the busy road outside her apartment complex. When he’s there, Meunier, a 24-year-old senior at University of Central Florida, said she can see his patrol car’s emergency lights from her window.

“I asked him if he would hurt me,” Meunier told the Orlando Sentinel in a recent interview. “He told me that his body camera would turn on automatically if he unholstered his weapon.” At the time, she said, Price, 30, was armed and dressed in his Orlando Police Department uniform. Meunier took the comment as a threat.

At a hearing scheduled for Monday, a judge will rule on whether the two must legally stay apart.

Last month, Meunier filed an internal affairs complaint at the Orlando Police Department in an attempt to get Price’s assignment changed so he would no longer be patrolling in her neighborhood. Days later, Price filed for an injunction accusing Meunier of cyberstalking, referencing a TikTok video she posted about an affair she says they had.

Meunier has since filed for her own injunction saying that Price threatened to release nude photos of her and told her that if she didn’t speak to him, he’d find a reason

to arrest her.

That claim is “absolutely false,” said Kelly Hedum, Price’s attorney. “Absolutely and categorically false. Never happened.”

Hedum did not comment on the other allegations but said she believes Price will prevail in court.

Meunier said she filed for the injunction after she was told that the IA complaint likely would not result in punishment or a change in assignment for Price.

“They won’t even consider moving his districts,” Meunier said. “I’m not going after his job, I wasn’t trying to ruin his life. I just wanted him not allowed in my area. … I just don’t want that anymore. And as a police officer, he can be there. They are continuing to enable him to do what he wants.”

The Internal Affairs investigation into Meunier’s claims ended Tuesday, about one month after she filed the complaint.

Police interviewed Meunier and reviewed six screenshots including text messages from Price and from several other phone numbers that Meunier said she believed Price used to contact her after she blocked his phone number.

In one exchange with Price, she asked him to delete the photos and, after asking about her sudden concern, he did not respond to say whether or not he planned to delete them. In texts from unknown numbers, one message said Meuiner “should be embarrassed” and called her “pathetic.” In an IA interview, Meunier said she believed those texts also came from Price, according to a transcript of the interview.

IA did not interview Price because “based on what (Meunier) disclosed, there was no indication a violation of policy,” said Heidi Rodriguez, OPD spokesperson.

In an investigative summary, IA Investigator Christopher Carty concluded that the text messages “depict casual conversation.” Price, who has worked at OPD for two years, was cleared of wrongdoing.

According to Meunier, the two met while Price was working an off-duty shift at the hospital where Meunier works in late Spring 2020. Meunier said Price started to flirt with her soon after meeting but she was in a relationship at the time. The two were friends, then became romantic the following summer after her relationship ended, she said. By the Fall, Meunier said she learned Price was married and expecting a child and tried to end their relationship.

In December, she said she contacted his wife to inform her of the affair in an attempt to get Price to leave her alone.

In a court complaint, Price said Meunier was actually the one attempting to approach him at a coffee shop and park near her home. He also noted a TikTok video Meunier posted, which he described as harassment. In the video, Meunier is seen lip-syncing the lyrics “You kept me a secret, nobody had to know. I kept you like an oath” from the Taylor Swift song “All Too Well.”

As the music played, a screenshot of Snapchat messages between she and Price and photos of Price, his wife and their child were visible.

In his complaint, Price said the video was shared around the police department and his wife was forced to delete her social media accounts and change her phone number because of the TikTok post. He added that some of the comments on the video were threatening. Price sent Meunier a cease-and-desist letter then, after she filed the IA complaint, he filed for the injunction.

Meunier’s “continuing dangerous course of conduct to purposefully annoy, threaten, intimidate, and alarm (Price) and his family serves no legitimate purpose and has put him in fear for the safety of his family, his fellow officers, and her personal well-being,” Price wrote in his complaint.

After Monday’s hearing, a judge will determine if either injunction should be granted.