Jury acquits firefighter of domestic abuse
A jury on Monday acquitted a Milwaukee Fire Department captain of charges that he battered, strangled, stalked and sexually assaulted his exgirlfriend, a police officer, during a volatile relationship.
The verdicts followed last week’s trial for Leon Butts Jr. that provided a window into the kinds of repeated and confounding domestic violence that public safety officers like Butts and the victim respond to on their jobs but apparently could not escape personally despite their professional experiences.
The officer was the key prosecution witness, and Butts did not testify.
Assistant District Attorney Nicolas Heitman told jurors in his closing argument Friday that the victim’s status as a police officer, which might appear to make it easier to address her situation, actually made it harder.
He said she worried, “How will I do my job? What will they think of me if I can’t take care of myself?”
Heitman said everyone knows it can be hard to escape domestic violence. “The question is not why someone stays, it’s is he an abuser?”
Butts’ attorney, Jane Christopherson, argued that the fact the victim stayed even after the final incident until persuaded to report it shows she was never really that fearful of Butts, one of the elements of the stalking charge against him.
She also suggested that the victim’s decision to finally seek charges was out of revenge when Butts finally wanted her to leave.
“There’s an adage,” Christopherson said, “hell hath no fury,” and left the ending — “like a woman scorned” — unspoken.
Butts, 48, was charged in April 2017 after a fight at the couple’s home that ended with him choking her so hard she said she vomited blood and thought she might die. When it was over, Butts called his mother to the house, but no one called the police.
At the urging of two fellow female officers, the woman reported the April 23 attack to internal affairs a few days later, and told investigators about another fight that March in which she said Butts gave her a black eye, and that he had once threatened to bury her behind the shed when she told him she never promised marriage.
Butts has been on administrative leave since being charged and did not testify at trial. He initially faced two misdemeanor battery counts and felony counts of strangulation and stalking, all as domestic abuse.
Months later, prosecutors added a count of second-degree sexual assault of an unconscious victim, after the victim disclosed an October 2016 incident in which she said she awoke from the stupor of a sleeping pill to find Butts engaged in a sex act with her.
The victim’s best friend and business partner in a beauty salon, Sgt. Theresa Janick, testified the victim told her about that incident shortly after it happened. Janick said she was upset and offended, but the victim seemed more confused by it and did not seem to consider it rape at the time.
Janick said she asked the victim what she wanted to do, and she replied she wanted to discuss it with Butts.
A few days later, Janick said, she asked the victim how that went, and she said she and Butts were OK. Janick said she felt it was not her place to report a possible sexual assault and that a couple should make their own choices about what happens in their bedroom.
The victim, 35, was the main witness in the case. She said she moved in with Butts in late 2015 or early 2016 after dating a few months. She said he was perfect, “an amazing man,” but also described numerous incidents of suspicion about him cheating, and his suspicions about her, fights, breakups and reconciliations.
She also blamed Butts for losing custody of her two children, with two other men, after they had been living with her and Butts for several weeks. The defense pointed out that each of the fathers had long-pending cases in family court with the woman over placement and child support issues.