Domestic Assault and Battery Case Against Business Owner Dismissed

On August 13, 2018 police in a Boston suburb were dispatched to a report of a fight between two people in a parking lot. When they arrived they were met by a woman who complained that her ex-boyfriend, the defendant, had pushed her, grabbed her by the hair and neck and shoved her into a car. Bystanders witnessing the incident corroborated the victim’s account. The man was charged with domestic assault and battery under G.L. c. 265 Section 13M. With our assistance the man applied for and was granted a cross-complaint against the victim. Cross complaints are very effective and rarely used proceedings at which a defendant can assert his versions of the event to a clerk magistrate in hopes of getting a criminal complaint to issue against the “victim”. In this case the strategy prevailed. The “victim” agreed to assert her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and, today the complaint against our client was dismissed.

Read More in G.L. c. 265 Section 13M