As has been the case since Miss United States Lindsey Langston came forward to accuse Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) of making threats of violence and revenge porn after their breakup, the hearing about her petition for a restraining order against him was filled with drama.

Langston testified at Columbia County Courthouse on Friday morning about her growing concerns about Mills' mental health at the tail end of their three-year relationship as well as her increasing terror afterward on account of his behavior. According to Langston, Mills repeatedly contacted her after the breakup in February, pleading with her to reconcile and progressively threatening greater and greater harm to himself and others if she did not agree.

'I'm up against this person who is intimidating, and I don't know what to do.'

Langston testified that in March he threatened to commit suicide if she would not take him back.

Despite these alleged alarming comments, Langston said she continued to speak with Mills, even mentioning to him in late April or early May that she was struggling with an IRS- and tax-related problem, though she noted that she eventually had to ask him to stop contacting her.

Sometime in May, she began ignoring his messages, she said, and by late May, she started blocking him on her phone and social media accounts. However, she said the messages continued — and that they promised to harm her future love interests and even to share revenge porn with them or with the Miss United States organization.

Blaze News previously viewed screenshots of those messages, some or all of which were then introduced into evidence on Friday. They include:

• "You want to date or be with someone else. Be my guest. But they need to know well in advance that if we cross paths, I don’t care this week, this month, or this decade. They better damn well know it’s coming every time."
• "May want to tell every guy you date that if we run into each other at any point. Strap up cowboy."
• "I can send him a few videos of you as well," followed by "Oh, I still have them."

Messages that she received in June were so specific that she worried he was somehow monitoring her activities in Columbia County, she told the court.

Langston previously indicated to Blaze News that on June 12 she told him once and for all to leave her alone, and her attorney, Bobi J. Frank, noted at the hearing on Friday that Langston asked him "10, 11, 12 times" to stay away.

Between the escalating rhetoric and his previous boasts about engaging in violence, Langston testified that she felt she had no choice but to involve law enforcement.

"I'm up against this person who is intimidating," she said through tears on the stand, "and I don't know what to do."

"I thought I could handle this, and I can't. I can't handle it by myself. Please help me. Someone please help me because I don't know what to do, and I'm scared," she added.

RELATED: Drama continues as Rep. Cory Mills prepares for looming court hearing against Miss United States

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc./Getty Images

When it was Mills' turn to take the stand, he did not deny contacting Langston after their breakup, noting that they had broken up and reconciled before and that he believed that they were on a path toward reconciliation once again. When his attorney, Aaron Delgado, asked about the messages that Langston found worrisome, Mills seemed to suggest that they were inside jokes between two Southerners raised in the "country."

"I grew up in the country," Mills said. "You know, I grew up hunting and fishing in Perry and Mayo and things like that. We grew up with subsequently the same backgrounds. ... We used to talk about how country folk are a little bit different than those up North."

He indicated that he was merely adopting her type of "voice" and language.

Mills at first said his last conversation with Langston 'was around the June 12th time frame,' but when Delgado pressed further, asking whether he had any contact with Langston after that point, Mills equivocated.

As far as the messages seemingly directed at a new man in Langston's life, Mills said they were responses to threats that the man had first given about him. "She even sent me a text that was cropped that just said, 'Good luck,' saying that this was his response," Mills asserted.

Langston testified Friday that while she had gone on dates, she had not been involved in another relationship after Mills.

Mills further stated that while Langston had sent him explicit videos of herself during their relationship — a fact that Langston confirmed during cross-examination — he had deleted those videos and that the phone on which he had received them was later damaged. He denied ever contacting the Miss United States organization or the county GOP group of which Langston is a member about the explicit photos and videos.

RELATED: Rep. Cory Mills to appear in court following bombshell accusations from Miss United States

Photo courtesy of Lake City Reporter

Mills, who is still believed to be married to Rana Al Saadi despite reportedly telling Langston in 2024 that his divorce had been finalized, gave an ambiguous answer when Delgado asked him to pinpoint the last time he had contacted Langston.

Mills at first said his last conversation with Langston "was around the June 12th time frame," but when Delgado pressed further, asking whether he had any contact with Langston after that point, Mills equivocated. "No, sir, only to the fact of I have heard ..." Mills began before he was cut off multiple times by Frank, Judge Fred Koberlein, and Delgado that he was engaging in hearsay.

At the prompting of Judge Koberlein, Delgado eventually redirected the line of questioning, and Mills' testimony concluded shortly thereafter.

Langston had testified earlier that after she contacted law enforcement and the media, Mills, his current girlfriend, and his chief of staff sent her a flurry of messages and phone calls, begging her to retract her story. She told Blaze News on August 5, the day our story on the accusations broke, about this alleged harassment.

The hearing Friday extended well beyond the time allotted, with other critical procedures, including cross-examination of Mills and closing statements, left undone. After both attorneys petitioned for more time, Judge Koberlein suspended the hearing, demanding that by 4 p.m. Friday they agree upon another date and time to continue the proceedings.

After the court was recessed, Mills promised the gaggle of reporters in attendance, including Steve Baker of Blaze News, that he would address them outside the courthouse, but he never appeared, instead exiting the building from another door.

Delgado did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News, and Frank declined to give one.

The court had previously dismissed Langston's emergency petition for a restraining order. As of the time of this writing, no follow-up hearing has been scheduled.

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