Celebrity Chef Justin Sutherland Arrested

Police in St. Paul, Minnesota, arrested Food Network chef Justin Sutherland on the evening of June 28, 2024, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, on suspicion of domestic assault and criminal threats of violence.

Around 8 p.m. that night, the newspaper reported, officers were called to a St. Paul address after receiving reports that an armed man was outside the address. Sgt. Mike Ernster, a spokesman for the St. Paul Police Department, told the newspaper that the man, identified as Sutherland, 39, was booked into the Ramsey County Jail.

However, according to Bring Me the News, responding officers said he did not have a weapon as previously reported.

“Our investigators will work to determine the circumstances that led to this arrest,” Ernster told the Pioneer Press. “When we have those details, we will share them. »

Ernster also told the newspaper that the St. Paul Police Department would submit a brief to the Ramsey County District Attorney's Office for consideration of filing charges. Sutherland remained in jail the day after his arrest, according to the Pioneer Press, but it's unclear whether he has since been released.

Justin Sutherland and his girlfriend were hospitalized with serious injuries after accidents over the past two years

Sutherland's arrest is the latest crisis in the chef's personal life in the past two years. The Minnesota native, who appeared on Food Network's Top Chef in May, has had his ups and downs over the past two years.

In early July 2022, he was seriously injured in a boating accident, according to People. When the chef's hat was blown away by a gust of wind, he fell overboard trying to catch it and his head and arm were hit by the engine, his family wrote in a GoFundMe campaign that raised more than $287,000 for the chef, who did not have health insurance.

Sutherland's family said he suffered a broken arm, a “severely broken” jaw, and required multiple plastic surgeries to repair lacerations to his head and face. In March 2023, he told People that his “nose was completely destroyed” in the accident and that he had to undergo “complete dental reconstructive surgery.”

Meanwhile, Sutherland's girlfriend Serena Lange revealed via Instagram in May that she had been hospitalized after surviving an eight-story fall from the balcony of their hotel in the Bahamas, into a shallow pool below.

“I was too far over to talk to the people below me and fell forward,” she wrote. “Justin tried to catch me, but I slipped through his arms.”

Lange said she suffered a broken femur, a broken hip, a small tear in her kidney and two collapsed lungs, writing that it was “a miracle those were my only injuries.” . After being rushed to a local hospital in “extremely poor” conditions, Lange said she “elected to be flown by private medical plane to the closest hospital in the United States for my surgery “, where a metal rod was placed in her leg, tubes in her lungs and where she received three blood transfusions.

“I had to relearn how to use my leg and walk, which was truly humbling,” she wrote and shared her own GoFundMe campaign. As of June 30, she had raised $23,000 of her $30,000 goal.

In addition to thanking her sister for caring for her in the hospital, Lange wrote, “Justin, you did everything you could to make me feel comforted and calm while going through your own trauma from the whole situation. I literally can't thank you enough.”

Police have not identified the woman who was present during Sutherland's June 29 arrest, so it is unclear whether Lange was involved.

Rising celebrity chef Justin Sutherland says he expects 2024 to be a “huge year” for him

Sutherland is a rising TV star after winning Food Network’s “Iron Chef America,” co-starring in the network’s “Fast Foodies” and competing on season 16 of Bravo’s “Top Chef,” according to IMDb. In December, Sutherland’s TruTV series “Taste the Culture” earned him the Daytime Emmy Award for Culinary Host, according to the Star Tribune.

In January, Sutherland left his first restaurant, Handsome Hog in St. Paul, but told Mpls.St.Paul magazine, “2024 is going to be a huge year, I'm so grateful for everything that's happened before, the good and the bad, I'm ready to learn these lessons and move forward. »

The magazine reported that Sutherland and his father, Kerry Sutherland, started their own restaurant group and opened new egg sandwich shops in Portland and St. Paul called Big E's. They also have two restaurants based on his 2022 cookbook, Northern Soul, at the Minneapolis-St. Paul and at the Grand View resort in northern Minnesota.