A New Jersey physician has alleged that Ron Arnau, a Democratic nominee for a state Assembly district in North Jersey, physically and emotionally abused him throughout a tumultuous, nearly two-year relationship from 2014 to 2016. Arnau, a former Woodland Park councilman, denies the allegations.
In interviews with the New Jersey Globe, Cristian Serna-Tamayo said the toxic relationship culminated on the night of July 4, 2016, when he alleges Arnau held him at knifepoint for about three hours. Statements he made at the time, including a restraining order Serna-Tamayo received against Arnau, corroborate the claims.
“He held me against my will at knifepoint for three hours,” Serna-Tamayo wrote in a sworn witness statement after the incident. “I thought he was going to kill me and himself.”
Arnau, one of two Democratic nominees for Assembly in the state’s 40th legislative district, was never criminally charged in the matter and is now married to a different man. He denied the allegations to the New Jersey Globe and said he believes documents and other evidence absolve him of wrongdoing, but is unsure whether he’s legally allowed to release the evidence. Arnau said he proved his innocence in court; family court records in New Jersey are generally sealed, so the public cannot access those dockets.
Arnau alleged Serna-Tamayo, who had struggled with alcohol at points during the relationship, was in a poor mental state at the time and did not accurately describe the nature of their relationship.
“It’s unfortunate that Mr. Serna has chosen to revisit a false narrative from nearly a decade ago: one that was fully addressed and resolved in a court of law in my favor,” Arnau said in a statement Wednesday. “Domestic violence is a grave and real issue that affects far too many, and I remain committed to being a fierce advocate for survivors and for justice in the New Jersey General Assembly.”
“It saddens me that these false claims are being resurfaced at a moment when I am focused on delivering real change for real people,” Arnau continued. “The last time I was in contact with Mr. Serna, in 2016, he was facing personal challenges. I sincerely hope he has since found the support and healing he deserves. My motivation has always been, and remains, to build a government that better supports individuals and families who are struggling.”
Serna-Tamayo practices internal medicine and teaches anatomy to medical, dental, and physical therapy students at Rutgers University-Newark.
Both in the sworn witness statement and an interview, Serna-Tamayo said Arnau had hit him before that night. Serna-Tamayo said Arnau is not fit for public office, and that upon learning Arnau was seeking a seat in Trenton, he felt obliged to share his story.
“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t say anything,” Serna-Tamayo said.
The 40th legislative district, which includes parts of Passaic, Essex, and Bergen counties, is currently represented by GOP Assemblymen Al Barlas (R-Cedar Grove) and Christopher DePhillips (R-Wyckoff). Arnau ran in the primary on Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop’s slate of anti-establishment candidates; the other Democrat running for the seat, former Caldwell Council President Jeff Gates, ran with party support.
The boundaries of the 40th district favor Republicans, and no Democrat has held any of the district’s seats since the modern 40-district map was created in 1973. Still, the seats could be competitive in a year with a Democratic wave.
Arnau, a human resources consultant, recently served as a councilman in the Passaic County borough of Woodland Park, but he resigned last June, about six months into his tenure. In his letter of resignation, he alleged that he had witnessed discriminatory comments against the LGBTQ+ community and people of color, as well as bullying and retaliation. Woodland Park officials said they would investigate the matter.
The relationship between Serna-Tamayo and Arnau, which started before his time in public office, was volatile from the beginning, Serna-Tamayo said.
In an interview, Serna-Tamayo said Arnau first approached him via LinkedIn in November of 2014. The pair hit it off, and within weeks, went on a cruise together (Arnau has made clear his affinity for cruises; in a 2023 social media post, he said he’s embarked on 30 such voyages). Serna-Tamayo said the relationship quickly became controlling and toxic, often arguing for hours.
“He kept track of who I spoke to on Instagram, who I spoke to on Facebook,” Serna-Tamayo said. “It was a very controlling situation.”
Serna-Tamayo alleged that, after months of loud arguments and intimidation, the first instance of physical abuse came in the summer of 2015. Serna-Tamayo, a longtime Hudson County resident, had moved to Rhode Island in June that year to start an internal medicine internship at Brown University, and Arnau had visited him soon after he moved there. The next morning, according to Serna-Tamayo, an argument started once again, but Arnau allegedly escalated to physical violence with punches and hits to the chest.
At some point in the following couple of months, the pair took a trip to Mexico, and after another argument arose, Serna-Tamayo alleged Arnau ran up to him, confronted him, and punched him in the face.
“Somehow we made it back to the apartment,” Serna-Tamayo said. “And I don’t remember much of the details of the rest of that argument, but the following day was our flight back, and the following day, he expressed absolutely zero remorse.”
In the fall of 2015, Serna-Tamayo said Arnau made an “unannounced visit” to his apartment in Rhode Island. Once again, a quarrel ensued. Serna-Tamayo said Arnau destroyed glassware that Arnau had gifted to him, tackled him to the floor of the bedroom, and screamed at him while pinning him to the ground. Serna-Tamayo said he got rug burn on his face and knees, and demanded that Arnau leave town. When they arrived at the train station, Serna-Tamayo said Arnau grabbed the glasses from his face and snapped them.
Arnau said it was a “bad relationship,” but denied the allegations of assault and said he never abused Serna-Tamayo.
“There’s no evidence to suggest that these things happened,” Arnau said in an interview. “I was never charged, never arrested. I think we’ve all seen that friend that has been in a bad relationship, and unfortunately, I happened to live through one.”
Serna-Tamayo said they went months without speaking, but Arnau reached back out in the early spring of 2016, and their relationship rekindled. Still living in Rhode Island, Serna-Tamayo felt disconnected from his family in New Jersey. Serna-Tamayo took a role at the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick to be closer to home, and he and Arnau moved into a Jersey City apartment together starting in June 2016.
On the Fourth of July, he said they swam at their building’s pool, celebrating the holiday with a day of relaxation. They watched fireworks from their apartment, which had a view of the city’s skyline, and settled in to watch Game of Thrones, but Serna-Tamayo said a “switch flipped” for Arnau.
“He lost control,” Serna-Tamayo said. “He became very, very upset. He told me that he knew that, when I was down at the pool, I was messaging someone else inappropriately, which wasn’t the case. I don’t even know where he got that from.”
Serna-Tamayo alleged Arnau was angry about work papers that listed his mother as an emergency contact rather than Arnau, that he was angry about their sex life, and that he was angry about perceived infidelity. Serna-Tamayo admitted he had cheated earlier in the relationship, but said Arnau knew about those instances and had “supposedly forgiven” him.
“I asked him to leave me alone but he didn’t,” he wrote in the witness statement in 2016. “I got scared because he had hit me in the past so I called 911. This got him even more upset. I hung up on 911 and he left the room. He came back to the bedroom with two knives. He held one knife to his neck and clutched the blade of the other knife. He told me if I made any sudden movements that he would slice his throat and make me watch him bleed to death.”
Serna-Tamayo told the New Jersey Globe that Arnau, whom he had never seen “this riled up,” was holding butcher knives and that he regrets hanging up on 911.
“[He] said that we were both going to die that night, that he was going to kill himself and make me watch him bleed out, but that he was also going to kill me,” he said. “I distinctly remember him saying, ‘The only way that we’re leaving this room tonight is in bodybags.’”
He said that after several hours, Arnau eventually calmed down and the pair went to bed. The next morning, he says, Arnau became angry once again and chased him from the apartment. It was Serna-Tamayo’s first day at his new job, and he said he went to a bar instead of his apartment at the end of the day — he said he’d been sober from alcohol since they got back together in the spring, but said the trauma led to him relapsing.
Arnau eventually convinced him to come back to the apartment, but Serna-Tamayo admits he lashed out when he returned. Serna-Tamayo said he was experiencing fear and anger that night, and stabbed a bathroom wall with a knife as a trauma response, which he characterized as a sort of subconscious reclamation of control (he said he did not threaten Arnau).
Over the next couple of days, Serna-Tamayo said he couldn’t sleep well and eventually left, obtaining a restraining order.
Serna-Tamayo admitted that, because of the stress of the relationship and the years that have passed, his memory of the era is imperfect. He said the night sent him spiraling, and that he was depressed and suicidal for months. He’s since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, which he said stems from the relationship.
His retelling of the July 4th altercation aligns with the witness statement he wrote in the days following the alleged abuse. The temporary restraining order he obtained on July 7 also details the two instances of alleged abuse in Rhode Island and the alleged assault in Mexico. At the time, Serna-Tamayo received pro bono representation from Partners for Women and Justice (now known simply as Partners), a nonprofit law firm offering services to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. One lawyer in the case is a longtime friend of Serna-Tamayo.
Arnau also received a temporary restraining order against Serna-Tamayo during that same period. That restraining order states Serna-Tamayo stabbed and damaged a bathroom wall on July 5th; it also claims that he at one point held a dog and a knife at the same time that night, but doesn’t state there were threats against the dog.
Arnau, who denied all accusations of abuse, said that Serna-Tamayo had actually been the one to be arrested. Serna-Tamayo said that was technically true; he said he had accidentally texted Arnau instead of his lawyer, and that police detained him for a couple of hours for violating the restraining order but didn’t press charges.
In the days after the altercation, but before the restraining orders had been set, Serna-Tamayo couldn’t find his wallet, and so he took Arnau’s debit card to buy an $8 lunch at work. Serna-Tamayo said that while the debit card belonged to Arnau, the pair had shared finances for months and was surprised to find out Arnau had reported the spending to police; charges of credit card theft were dropped.
Arnau said Serna-Tamayo is not a credible witness. He said Serna-Tamayo had been struggling with alcohol before the alleged July 4 altercation, and that the incident was not the impetus for his relapse. Arnau claimed his former partner “has not been well.”
The pair reached a settlement to drop their restraining orders in August 2016. In the agreement, which Serna-Tamayo provided to the New Jersey Globe, Arnau kept the apartment, and they agreed not to contact each other. Serna-Tamayo paid a little more than $1,240 in debt to Arnau as part of the agreement, including a cruise cancellation fee and $100 to repair the bathroom wall. The agreement states it does not legally constitute “an admission of any sort” by Arnau or Serna-Tamayo. Under the agreement, the pair also terminated a joint checking account, and Arnau got full custody of their 18-month-old Staffordshire Bull Terrier.
Arnau claims the apartment was awarded to him because a judge ruled his arguments in court were substantiated by evidence; Serna-Tamayo claims the apartment was awarded to Arnau because he paid the deposit.
“This is a 10-, 11-year-old matter that, thankfully, the law was on my side and resolved in about four to five weeks,” Arnau said.
Serna-Tamayo said that in addition to the PTSD and period of suicidal thoughts, he’s faced years of struggles with personal and professional well-being due to the trauma of their relationship. He said he didn’t remember exactly why he decided not to press criminal charges against Arnau, and thinks it might have been the advice he’d gotten at the time. Regardless, he told the New Jersey Globe that telling his story wasn’t just to warn voters, but also a part of his healing process.
“I feel it’s imperative that his constituency know, and I’m looking for justice,” he said.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline can be reached at 800-799-7233.