No stranger to either lawsuits or accusations of controlling and abusive behavior—though most of these have involved the other members of Black Flag—Greg Ginn is now facing allegations of child abuse from his ex-wife, Marina Ginn. In an affidavit picked up by Consequence Of Sound, she details what she claims is a pattern of “increasingly erratic” behavior from the guitarist and SST Records founder, one that has put the safety of their 7- and 10-year-old daughters in jeopardy. These allegations include “routinely denying them food and threatening them,” forcing them to perform chores until the early morning hours, and punishing them by locking them in rooms and “throwing cups of water in their face.” She also claims that Ginn is extremely critical of her young daughters’ weights and unnervingly interested in their bodies—including allegedly having whistled at them and said, “You’re hot.”
In the very emotional affidavit, Ginn is portrayed as being as relentless and withholding a taskmaster with his young daughters as he’s often been accused of being in Black Flag. The allegations say his disciplinary methods range from the strict, yet certainly not uncommon—threatening to throw away all of their toys; denying them the use of cell phones—to the prison system-severe, including reportedly demanding that they clean “the entire industrial building” in which he lives, even at 1 a.m., and regularly depriving them of food. (“When they are finally given food,” it reads, “it is often just lettuce with vinegar and they are told if they don’t eat it all, they will get no more food. This makes them gag and they end up throwing up.”)
All this—combined with what Marina claims is Ginn’s increased drug and alcohol abuse, and the “terrible altercations” she says Ginn regularly gets into with people at his residence—has caused her daughters to say they “live in constant fear,” and led them to “become obsessed with an imaginary world,” which Marina claims has left them developmentally stunted. She further says that one of her daughters was recently hospitalized for seizures and chest pains, due to the stress Ginn had caused her.
Marina Ginn is currently seeking an Emergency Motion to Modify the Parent-Child Relationship to remove her daughters from her ex-husband’s custody. One of her friends has set up a crowdfunding page to offset her legal fees. So far, Ginn hasn’t responded to the charges; his attorney has told the Austin Chronicle not to expect a comment.