Attorneys representing the late American painter Thomas Kinkade's wife, Nanette, trustee and executor of the Kinkade Family Trust and the artist's estate, have filed a temporary restraining order against his live-in girlfriend, Amy Pinto-Walsh. 
 
 In court documents obtained Friday afternoon by Los Gatos Patch at the Santa Clara County Superior Court in San Jose, three attorneys with the Los Angeles-based law firm of Zuber & Taillieu LLP, said they are seeking the injunction to prevent Pinto-Walsh from disclosing information in breach of a confidentiality agreement she signed Feb. 25, 2011. 
 
 Kinkade, 54, was reported to have died the morning of April 6 in his Monte Sereno estate on Ridgecrest Drive. On Saturday, April 7, Pinto-Walsh gave a phone interview to Los Gatos Patch and said she was with Kinkade when he died, had called 911 at 11:30 a.m. and identified herself as Amy Pinto. 
 
 She also said she was Kinkade's live-in girlfriend, was with him for 18 months and that Kinkade had been separated from his wife Nanette for quite a while. 
 
 As to the cause of death, she said she wasn't supposed to divulge the information and that the Santa Clara County Coroner's Office would have more details in the next few days. "He died in his sleep ... He had a heart condition," she said. 
 
 The petition, to be heard by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Patricia M. Lucas, seeks to prohibit Pinto-Walsh from making statements or engaging in conduct that has the effect of defaming, criticizing, disparaging or discrediting Kinkade, Nanette Kinkade, or any company owned by Kinkade "to appear in a negative light or false light." 
 
 It also seeks to prevent Pinto-Walsh, who is living in the late painter's Monte Sereno mansion on Ridgecrest Drive, from publishing or assisting in the publishing of any book, article, review, notice, press release, advertisement, public or private communication or report concerning Kinkade, Nanette Kinkade or any company owned by Kinkade. 
 
 The order also states it wants to stop Pinto-Walsh from selling, trading, publishing, disclosing, producing, permitting access to or otherwise revealing proprietary information to anyone by means of photocopy, reproduction or electronic media. 
 
 Judge Lucas is set to hear the matter at 9 a.m., Tuesday, April 24, in department 2 of the Santa Clara County Superior Court Civil Division, 191 No. First St. in San Jose. 
 
 According to court documents, the confidentiality agreement prevents Pinto-Walsh from revealing private confidential information about the Kinkade family and trade secrets held by the Kinkade family businesses, including Windermere Holdings LLC and Pacific Metro LLC, also known as The Thomas Kinkade Company, "which she learned in her role as a personal assistant and companion to Thomas Kinkade." 
 
 Kinkade died the night of April 5, the documents further state, in contradiction to what's been reported by media all over the world, including Los Gatos Patch. They also state that the next morning, Pinto-Walsh breached the confidentiality agreement by speaking to Los Gatos Patch about his "non-public health condition." 
 
 Furthermore, Pinto-Walsh "announced to a friend of the Kinkade family" that she intended to breach the agreement by publicizing confidential information about the Kinkade family and its businesses, including private photographs. 
 
 "The release of these items would be personally devastating not only for Mrs. Kinkade, but also for the family's four daughters, who are grieving the sudden loss of their father," the attorneys wrote. 
 
 Pinto-Walsh had access to trade secrets and commercially sensitive information of Windermere and other businesses owned by the Kinkade family and she has "threatened to release, it is very likely that she will misappropriate Windermere's trade secrets for her own purposes or disclose them to third parties." 
 
 To back up their arguments, the attorneys included in their petition declarations made by family friends Linda Raasch, Denise Sanders, Robert Murray and Lisa M. Lawrence. 
 
 Murray is the attorney representing Windermere Holdings and Pacific Metro. 
 
 Murray writes in his declaration that he's been present in meetings which Pinto-Walsh also attended, during which aspects of Kinkade companies' business plans, strategies, financial information and other private sensitive information were mentioned. 
 
 Based on Pinto-Walsh's relationship with Kinkade, she had access to information regarding Thomas Kinkade Studios' proprietary painting techniques, including paint type, brush techniques and the use of computer technology in painting, the records stated. 
 
 On April 9, a medical examiner at the Santa Clara County Coroner's Office said an autopsy on the late American painter Thomas Kinkade had been performed but that the cause of death was pending further studies, which could take weeks to finish. 
 
 The order to appear for the injunction request hearing was to be served on Pinto-Walsh on or before April 12. Opposition to it needed to be filed and served by personal delivery or email on or before Thursday, April 19, and any documents were to be delivered to the court by 10 a.m., Monday, April 23, the documents said. ||||| Thomas Kinkade’s girlfriend said Monday the world-famous 54-year-old artist “died in his sleep, very happy, in the house he built, with the paintings he loved, and the woman he loved.” 
 
 Amy Pinto, in tears, told a reporter through an intercom outside the gate at the Monte Sereno home that Kinkade died Friday morning peacefully but she offered few details. 
 
 The two had been dating for the past 18 months, Pinto said, about six months after his wife, Nanette, filed for legal separation. Nanette and the couple’s two teenage daughters were in Australia at the time of his death. 
 
 The Santa Clara County Coroner’s Office said an autopsy was performed Monday on Kinkade but the cause of death might not be determined for months. Results of toxicology and other tests could take 12 to 20 weeks, because of a backup at the county lab. 
 
 “The fact that he’s famous has nothing to do with the toxicology turnaround time,” said a spokeswoman from the coroner’s office who didn’t want her name used. 
 
 In recent years, bouts with alcohol and bankruptcy painted a darker image of the man who described himself as the “painter of light.” 
 
 He was known for his paintings of bucolic pastoral scenes and charming cottages, candlelit images made into calendars and decorative plates that are said to fill one in 20 homes in California. Although the fine-art world often derided his work as tacky, mainstream Americans flocked to his paintings. 
 
 Kinkade created several hundred Thomas Kinkade Signature Galleries to sell his work. In 2010, the recession took its toll and his Morgan Hill art company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, listing nearly $6.2 million in creditors’ claims. 
 
 On Monday, the CEO of Kinkade’s galleries said in a statement they were overwhelmed by the “outpouring of appreciation and interest in Thom’s work.” 
 
 “He strived to make his paintings available and affordable to the public and his collectors,” John Hasting, CEO of The Thomas Kinkade Co., said Monday. “In his honor, we will continue his legacy and do what we can to carry on. The man is already greatly missed by the Kinkade extended family, but we want everyone to know that the galleries will remain open and his images will continue to be marketed worldwide, just as he would have wanted it.” 
 
 Contact Julia Prodis Sulek at 408-278-3409.
– Earlier this week, Thomas Kinkade's girlfriend told the San Jose Mercury News that the artist "died in his sleep, very happy, in the house he built, with the paintings he loved, and the woman he loved." But another depressing article in The Daily paints a very different picture: When that same girlfriend, Amy Pinto, called 911 on the morning Kinkade died, she apparently told the dispatchers Kinkade had been drinking. "Apparently he has been drinking all night and not moving," the dispatcher says on the recording. And Kinkade's relationship with Pinto was also seemingly troubled: Los Gatos police confirmed they had responded "a couple" of times to Kinkade's home, and a neighbor says those calls involved domestic disputes. "They'd get into some nasty fights," he says. The Mercury News notes Kinkade and Pinto started dating six months after Kinkade's wife Nanette filed for legal separation and had been together about a year and a half. Click for more on Kinkade's troubled final years.