Massachusetts Criminal Lawyer Blog
On Tuesday, July 10 at 10:15 at night Attorney Robert Lewin was sitting at his desk and an email inquiry came into his inbox. It was a gentleman from Georgetown, MA who had to go to Haverhill District Court on Friday, July 13. The gentleman (whom we shall call SC) had been served with an Abuse Prevention Order that his former live-in girlfriend had taken out against him and it was scheduled for a hearing three days later. Attorney Lewin read the email and called SC at 10:30 that night. SC was floored that a lawyer would call him at 10:30 pm. SC and Attorney Lewin talked for about 1 hour. SC emailed Attorney Lewin paperwork. The next morning SC retained Attorney Lewin and Attorney Lewin went to work on the case. There was little time and much to do. Attorney Lewin obtained copies of the papers from the Haverhill District Court and on Wednesday afternoon spent two hours on the phone with SC going over all the evidence. On Thursday afternoon SC emailed Attorney Lewin a series of text messages that his ex-girlfriend had sent him. The ex was claiming that SC was a drunkard and was acting belligerently toward her and that their relationship had broken up in December 2017. She claimed that when he drank he was violent and she was afraid that he would hurt her. She claimed that they had not been intimate since December 2017.
On Friday, July 13, 2018 SC and Attorney Lewin and the ex-girlfriend and her lawyer appeared at Court. The case was called and the ex-girlfriend took the stand and began to tell her story to the Judge and even cried at one point. The Judge interrupted the girlfriend and was prepared to issue an order and Attorney Lewin demanded that there be a full hearing and that the Judge hear all the evidence. The Judge said fine, proceed with the hearing. The girlfriend testified that since early June she was afraid of SC. Attorney Lewin asked her if in late June she had sent SC a text offering to perform oral sex on SC if he would bring her home an iced coffee. She said she could not remember. Attorney Lewin presented her with her text message and asked her if she had sent it. She said yes. Attorney Lewin then asked her to read the text message to the Judge – she looked at the Judge and the Judge said read the message. She then read the message wherein she offered to give SC a blow job if he would bring her home an iced coffee. There was much more evidence that Attorney Lewin had, but the Judge intervened again and this time said that she could not issue an order. The Judge said that in order to issue an order the ex-girlfriend had the burden to prove that she had a reasonable fear of imminent serious physical harm from SC. The Judge said she could not make that finding in light of the evidence that Attorney Lewin had presented.
SC and Attorney Lewin left the Courtroom. SC was thrilled with the result – a result that Attorney Lewin had predicted to SC prior to the hearing. SC then turned to Attorney Lewin and thanked him and told Attorney Lewin that he would have paid Attorney Lewin twice what Attorney Lewin had charged him!
This case was won because Attorney Lewin and SC worked closely together and spent a great deal of time preparing the case. SC was a great client and furnished copies of pictures and emails and texts between himself and his ex-girlfriend to Attorney Lewin. Attorney Lewin explained to SC that the key to winning these cases is showing that the ex-girlfriend does not have a factual basis for any reasonable fear of imminent serious physical harm. Attorney Lewin got SC to focus on any evidence that showed that the ex-girlfriend did not have a fear of SC. The text message was just the right type of evidence.