[There was a video here]

The soon-to-be-ex-wife of Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) got a "temporary protective injunction" against the congressman Monday, after accusing him in court papers of physically assaulting her and threatening to ruin her life.

Grayson, who won fame as a loudmouthed maverick liberal after riding a Democratic wave into office in 2006, appeared to emerge chastened after losing re-election in 2010 and finding an open House seat in Orlando the following election cycle. Citing his procedural successes last year, Slate's Dave Weigel dubbed Grayson "the most effective member of the House"—a far cry from the guy who regularly called his opponents "Taliban" and "neanderthals."

But at the same time he was cultivating a respectable look in the House, his own house was falling apart, the Orlando Sentinel reports:

Lolita Grayson's petition for the injunction, dated Monday, says her husband pushed her against a door, causing her to fall to the ground, during a confrontation Saturday at their home on Oak Park Road near Windermere.

In a statement, Alan Grayson's press secretary, Lauren Doney, wrote that the allegations "are absolutely false, completely unfounded, and clearly designed to vilify and harm Congressman Grayson."...

The incident comes just less than two months after Lolita Grayson filed a divorce petition stating that their marriage of nearly 24 years was "irretrievably broken."

Lolita Grayson says the incident came during an unannounced visit to the home by her estranged husband, just as she was trying to take the couple's two children out for a play date. He wanted to talk; she refused:

After she refused, retrieved his mail and asked him to leave, Alan Grayson "then deliberately and with force pushed [Lolita Grayson] very hard against the front door, causing [her] to fall to the ground as a result," the petition states.

She told her husband not to touch her, then pushed him in the face and kneed him in the stomach "in order to protect and defend herself" before calling 911, her petition says.

As she was talking to the operator, Alan Grayson told his wife, in the presence of their children, that she "would receive nothing" in their divorce and would be left "in the gutter," the petition states.

Photos filed by Lolita Grayson's attorneys with the petition show large bruises to her left leg and left shoulder.

Her complaint alleges that "from time to time" in the past, her husband "has battered [her] and the parties' minor children," though she has not previously sought an injunction against him.

You can see Alan Grayson's denials in the video above, as he tries to get away from a reporter; his court paperwork accuses Lolita Grayson of growing "increasingly erratic" since the breakup.

The Orange County Sheriff's Office told the Sentinel that it's investigating the incident.