Miscommunication
A Brooklyn man arrested for allegedly violating a restraining order motioned (unsuccessfully) to the charges against him dropped, saying that he was only trying to set the record straight when he called his ex-lover.
He apparently called and harassed a Sunset Park woman repeatedly, but claims he didn’t do it when the alleged threats landed him in jail.
So goes the thrust of defendant Clement Evans, who motioned the court recently to have the charges of aggravated harassment against him wiped away since he claims he wasn’t threatening his victim when he made the call that led to his arrest.
Officials contend that late last year, Evans had repeatedly waited outside his victim’s home and verbally threatened her, claiming that he was going to get “his goons” to beat up his former love.
The woman, fearing that he would one day make good on his promises, had an order of protection filed against Evans, barring him from any contact with her.
According to his motion recently filed in court, his arrest stemmed from a phone call he made to her home on April 6, after someone scratched up his victim’s car.
In court papers, Evans alleged that he did call the woman’s home, which he was barred from doing, but never threatened her.
Instead, he left a message on her answering machine claiming that, although she must have thought that he was the one who scratched up her car, he didn’t do it.
The recorded message constituted a violation of the order of protection and he was summarily arrested, charged with violating a court order and harassment.
But Evans said he never harassed the woman — at least that time.
His attorneys claim that his “telephone call had a legitimate purpose of denying his involvement in damaging [the plaintiff’s]car” and that “the message he left could not have caused annoyance or alarm,” which are prerequisites for the charges.
City attorneys were not moved by Evans’ pleas, claiming that the previous calls, the order of protection and the call about his knowledge about how her car was damaged “provided reasonable grounds for the victim to be annoyed and alarmed.”
Whether she was alarmed by that particular phone call is a matter for a trial jury to decide.
Judge Miriam Best agreed, ruling that “the allegation that the defendant left a telephone message, in violation of an order of protection, demonstrating that he was aware that the complainant’s car had been damaged, when viewed in the context of the stalking charge, sufficiently alleges that the call invaded the complainant’s privacy with an intent to annoy or alarm her.”
Best denied the motion, leaving the case to be settled at trial.
Shooting for the stars
Stephen Charles was praying for a chance to sue the city last week, but he wasn’t on his knees.
That’d be impossible, since he had been shot in both knees just before police allegedly assaulted and falsely imprisoned him, and violated his civil rights — allegations he had hoped to bring forth in a lawsuit that was just a bit too late.
In recently filed court papers, Charles claims that an unidentified gunman shot him in both knees on New York Avenue back on June 9, 2007.
But instead of treating him like a victim, Charles alleged that the police arrested and detained him and brought him to the Kings County Hospital prison ward.
When he was ultimately discharged from the hospital on June 13, he was taken to Rikers Island.
His attorneys also allege that the police delayed his treatment and “did not listen to personnel of the hospital regarding the manner in which the handcuffs were used on the injured prisoner,” according to court papers.
Based on these claims, Charles’ attorney filed a notice of claim, expressing his intention to sue the city back on November 23, 2007 — around two months past the deadline for such claims to be made.
This month, Charles made a motion to file a late notice of claim about his allegedly harsh treatment, which the city refutes. They said that they never hurt Charles, and had the medical records to back it up, they claimed.
Ultimately Judge Robert Miller denied the claim, stating in court papers that Charles could not give a good enough reason why the court papers were filed so many weeks after the deadline.
Miller did say that Charles could take the matter up with a federal court if he wished.
