A CT man got a court order to silence his social media star wife. She says it will cost her millions.

The Connecticut Supreme Court  is preparing to hear what promises to be one of its more unusual cases — a First Amendment claim by a self-described intersex social media star who argues that a court order prohibiting her from talking about her “journey” with her much younger husband could cost her a multi-million dollar television contract.

When the court agreed to hear Sanchez v. Sanchez earlier this month, it looked as if the justices were getting a straightforward complaint about an infringement of free speech.

But lurking behind the legal filings is a world of social media where the story of 24-year-old Nate Sanchez’s marriage to, and estrangement from, his wife, 48-year-old Hillary Sanchez, is said to have attracted more than 20 billion views on TikTok.

Hillary Sanchez explained what is at stake during an August hearing in Superior Court, at which Nate Sanchez succeeded, over his wife’s objections, in obtaining the restraining order that blocks her from talking about him or their marriage on social media.

“I have, in my hand, and you can review it … a two-million-dollar contract with a national syndicated talk show and a reality show that has been executed,” Hillary Sanchez told the court. “I got approached by the production company. I signed this deal. Our social media posts have reached over 22.5 billion views. We are social media people.”

“People are interested in us,” she said. “I’m 48. He’s 22. We were married. They are interested in how the demographics of this marriage happen, what is going on, was I his sugar mamma, was he a sugar baby. There are all types of questions in the public.

“I’m not harassing him. I’m simply doing what I’m contractually obligated to do. I’m posting our wedding pictures, pictures of us when we were on dates. I can have communication. I can talk about my experience with my husband, and what he was doing, and what he was doing to me, storytime, teatime. It’s nothing threatening. It’s nothing harassment, whatsoever.”

No so, Nate Sanchez told the court.

“She’s saying all those things, that I’m — I’m lazy, that I’m a bum, that I used her for money, that she supported me, that she — that I’m a cheater, that I’m like screwing everyone that walks. Like, she’s making me out to be this person that I’m not,” he told the court. “It makes me feel bad, cause I have family and friends that just look at me like I’m this crazy person, and they’re like ‘I never seen you like this,’ and it’s — it’s like every — she’s online every day.”

What’s more, Nate Sanchez has asserted that he thought he was marrying a woman but discovered later that, in his view, he did not. The apparent discovery is detailed in a routine, non-criminal report in July by a Waterbury police officer. When the report was written, the Sanchezes were estranged and Nate Sanchez was living in Waterbury

“I made telephone contact with Nathaniel who stated that he met Hillary Sanchez, formerly Hillary Walls-Stewart online, and that they began an online relationship,” the officer wrote. “Nathaniel stated that he believed Hillary was a woman and that he did not find out until he married her legally that she is a male.”

The limited legal filings in the case so far indicate that the Connecticut Supreme Court was unaware of what is behind the online interest in the Sanchez marriage when Chief Justice Richard Robinson agreed on Oct. 18 to take the case under a law that allows aggrieved parties to appeal judicial decisions that involve “a matter of substantial public interest and in which delay may work a substantial injustice.”

Several lawyers have said the case presents a serious First Amendment question. Still, there is no way of knowing how much of the couple’s history could seep into the arguments and deliberations. They also said the court’s involvement in a marriage made famous by TikTok probably would not be opposed by anyone hoping to profit from the couple’s social media notoriety.

The justices do not discuss cases before them, and the court has not yet published a schedule for the filing of briefs

Neither Nate nor Hillary Sanchez could not be reached. Neither was represented by a lawyer at the hearing on the restraining order issued by Superior Court Judge Carletha S. Parkinson.

But Hartford lawyer and First Amendment specialist Mario Cerame has agreed to represent Hillary Sanchez for the limited appeal issue of whether Parkinson’s restraining order prohibiting certain speech on social media amounts to an illegal prior restraint and an overly broad order blocking Sanchez from saying whatever she might want to say about her life and marriage now and into the future.

Cerame said the case was referred to him by a colleague and that he has not looked into his client’s marital history. Cerame said that he believes the First Amendment question the case brings to the Supreme Court is far more important and its impact will be felt far longer than internet interest in the couple’s relationship.

“I told my client that whatever the court decides, its decision will outlive us,” Cerame said.

Public interest can be measured by billions of views drawn to Hilary Sanchez’ TikTok channel, called @nateandhillary, Cerame wrote in his application to have the Supreme Court hear his speech appeal, and he wrote that the restraining order is unjust because it “undermines my client’s ability to cultivate the kind of interest that serves her in negotiations with these producers.”

Of his clients married life, Cerame told the court only that, “Ms. Sanchez identifies as intersex and is a person of color. She has a fascinating story and there has been substantial interest in it, including from large media producers.”

Intersex people are born with a combination of both male and female biological traits. In one online video, Hillary describes herself as a hermaphrodite, a person with both male and female sexual organs. Her arrest record on the West Coast shows she has been arrested as a male, but was identified as a female at least once.

At the hearing on his request for a restraining order, Nate Sanchez testified that he met his wife online in March or April of 2022 and, a month later, “she convinced me to marry her…” When the restraining order forced Hillary Sanchez to close her TikTok channel, everything she had posted about her husband and their “journey” disappeared from the internet. But a few postings by followers remain online and show the outdoor, West Coast marriage ceremony

“I thought she was a great person, someone I can learn from, and someone that I can, like, just become a better person from,” Nate Sanchez told the court. “And with that, she kind of — I don’t know if she took advantage of it, but then she kind of took it a way to just kind of just sell me dreams in a way.”

He did not elaborate on the dreams, but he said his wife persuaded him to quit his job with a promise that she would  “supplement” his income. He said she failed to deliver.

“She continues to claim online that she supports me and supplements my income and that’s false,” he told the court. “She actually ran up my credit cards and convinced me to quit my job, so she did the opposite of that.”

Nate Sanchez’s family did not learn about his marriage for more than a year.

By July, he had parted from his wife — according to social media and other sources — and his mother called the Waterbury Police Department to complain that a woman who turned out to be Hillary was having her mail delivered to the Sanchez home. According to the police report, his mother said that ‘two weeks ago she learned that her son married a woman who was actually a man.”

What’s more, the police report says that Nate Sanchez’s mother complained “that this person has come to the home looking for mail, that the person is now receiving mail at this residence, and that the person has racked up credit card bills on her son, harassed him on social media and TikTok, and is ‘defaming his character.’”

Nate’s mother said she called the police because she didn’t know what else to do. She showed the officer TikTok videos featuring Nate, but the offer reported that “no threatening or derogatory language was used or statements made.”

Public records show that until her arrival in Connecticut, Hillary Sanchez was a long time resident of Washington.

Washington Department of Corrections records show she had been arrested nine times between 1996 and 2015 on various charges.

Around 2002, she persuaded people she had won a $93 million lottery and was accused of using the supposed win as collateral to obtain financing on purchases, including a $140,000 Hummer. She was then 27, living in Parkland, Washington, and using the name HIllary Lee Walls. She is identified in police reports as a man.

The scam fell apart, according to an article in the Seattle Times, when then Hillary Lee Walls appeared on television claiming to have a winning Mega Millions ticket and was recognized by police, who had outstanding warrants for her arrest on forgery and theft charges.

After being taken into custody, the article reports that she was arrested again after persuading a bail bondsman to arrange her release by accepting the phony lottery win as collateral for a bond.