Posted on 06/16/2005 8:20:49 AM PDT by Cagey
An Andover mother charged with assaulting a high school student after her car was pelted with snowballs was acquitted after another woman testified that she had been targeted the day before, the woman's lawyer said yesterday.
A Lawrence District Court jury took less than half an hour on Monday to acquit Marie Needs, 48, of one charge each of assault with a dangerous weapon and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. A lesser charge of carrying a firearm -- pepper spray -- without proper registration was dropped.
The incident took place March 16, when Needs went to Andover High School to pick up her child. After a group of students began pitching snowballs at her car, Needs went after at least one student with a tire iron, police said. She also pepper-sprayed 17-year-old Joey Cataldo, police said.
Cataldo was not among the youths throwing snowballs, but became involved when he asked Needs to move her car because it was blocking his.
Needs said she was acting in self-defense. She testified that she sprayed Cataldo after he got sarcastic with her and that she felt threatened. Cataldo could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Needs rejected several offers of plea bargains from prosecutors, said her lawyer, Robert Lewin.
''She needed her day in court," he said.
The trial, which lasted only four hours, hinged on the testimony of a woman who said she had experienced a similar incident.
The woman, whom Lewin declined to identify, told the jury that she went to pick up her daughter at the school on March 15, and students threw snowballs at her. One snowball broke a windshield, Lewin said. The woman told the jury she wished she had done what Needs did.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
> A lesser charge of carrying a firearm -- pepper spray
Buhhhhh.....
?????????????
Follow up to your thread of March 18th. She's Free!
Common sense prevails, even in Soviet Massachussistan! "Hey, it's June, for Pete's sake. Who CARES about a snowball case. Let's get out of this jury room and head for the beach"!;))
Pepper spray is a class 4 firearm, and not just in Massachusetts either.
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."
Thiry years ago on a very cold wet New Jersey winter day a snow/slush ball came through the half opened window of the tractor/trailer moving my bulldozer on Bloomfield Avenue in Belleville, striking the chauffeur in the left ear, direct hit. He let out a yelp, some bad words and narrowly missed the the car stopped short in front of him to turn left, and looked to his left to see two punks, 15 or 16 years old laughing, hard enough to wet their pants, at result of their aim.
Harold turned right at he nest intersection and pulled to the curb.
He got out of the truck, walked to the end of the street turned right, went to the next corner and turned rignt and walked to Bloomfield Avenue.
On the corner were our two marksmen, still laughing, that is until Harold stuck size 12EE so far up that kid's ass his ears popped, he was lifted off his feet and launched into the large, deep puddle of floatsom and jetsom in the intersection, his assistant could only stand there with his mouth open, shocked at this turn of events, he made a move to run but Harold had him by the coat collar and administered the same treatment.
All the time a Belleville Police Officer watched in amusment, his advice to our two marksmen was "I saw you throw the snowballs, didn't plan on this did 'ya?"
Harold then turned and walked back to the truck and we continued our journey. He finaly looked at me and said "I feel much better now"
The entire incident, less his walk around the block, took 20 seconds, and Harold was 60 years old, nicest guy you wanted to meet.
Some cliques on FR consider it a Class A Felony.
They feel threatened when someone exposes their hypocrisy.
LOL! She's lucky he didn't nail her head to the floor!
I'm in the trucking industry and I haven't heard anyone call a truck driver a "chauffeur" in quite a while, but there are still some New Yorkers (my Uncle Joe included) that use that term to describe a truck driver. You're dating yourself (and me). Thanks for the great story.
Proof that wacked-out juries don't only acquit celebrities for stupid reasons.
I am 50 this year, my family has been in the Contracting business since 1881, road work in Hudson County to start, and my grandfather explained it this way.
The people who drive are members of the "International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Warehousemen and Chauffeurs"
A Teamster "handles" a Team of Horses
A Warehouseman "handles" freight
A Chauffeur "handles" a moter vehecile
Also, Chaueffers are professionals, I pointed this out to a chaueffer working for me, and noticed a change in him, seems he was no longer "just" a truckdriver, became a very good employee, could quote you the 560 argeement from memory but was a good worker.
Somehow, the name Tony Pro just came to mind.
Ah yes,I remenber him and his minons well,
I can still see him slithering into Dante's in Jersey City.
His passing brought great joy to many and I sure he is in a very warm place now. A very, very bad man.
I actually Witnessed this in person.
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