Jury convicts woman of officer assault

STAUNTON – In a theatrical daylong jury trial Wednesday, a defense attorney called for the full-sized reconstruction of a Fishersville woman’s foyer and front door in the middle of an Augusta County courtroom.

One by one, 12 jurors peered through the frame as Judy Desetti stood with her arm wedged between the door and the banister, wearing a solemn face.

But Desetti’s effort to explain that she acted in self-defense when she punched an Augusta County sheriff’s deputy did not convince jurors.

After almost eight hours of arguments, testimony and defense manuevers that attracted unaffiliated attorneys to watch, the jury of nine women and three men found Desetti, 54, guilty of assaulting Cpl. Michael Roane.

Authorities charged Desetti in July 2009 for punching Roane as he tried to arrest her fugitive son. Desetti said Roane trapped her arm with the front door of her home in attempts to arrest him. The pain made her scream, she said, and she took a swing at him.

The felony conviction came after Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Robin Boylan tried to allow the jury to consider a charge of misdemeanor assault and battery.

But Desetti’s defense attorney, Francis Chester, declined the offer and asked the jury to choose between felony or freedom.

Desetti faces a mandatory six-month prison sentence. The felony conviction ended her nursing career.

“She put herself in this situation,” Boylan told jurors. “We are all equal before the law and that includes Mrs. Desetti, registered nurse.”

Upon the guilty finding, and after Judge Jay Swett dismissed the jury, Chester raised a final concern and asked for a mistrial on the basis of a juror’s possible conflict of interest.

“Are you telling me that you had this information and didn’t disclose it to me?” Swett boomed at about 6:45 p.m. “And are telling me now, after the jury has gone home?”

Chester, waving his hands in circles, stammered a response.

“Your honor, if you want to know the truth, I … I was in a state of shock,” he said. “It could be totally wrong, but I think we need to look into it.”

Chester claimed the questionable juror might have a law enforcement officer relative.

Swett denied the motion.

In trial, Chester argued the case boiled down to a matter of “flight or fight.”

“You flee from danger if you can, but if you’re trapped in a corner, like a rat, you turn around to fight,” he said. “[Mrs. Desetti] is as innocent as they come.”

Both attorneys sent witnesses through the scale model foyer of the Desetti home.

In their testimonies, Roane and Desetti walked through their versions of the story.

Roane said he tried to be as diplomatic as possible, even after Desetti blocked his entry into the house. She shoved the door against him, trying to shut him out, he said.

“On the third time she tried to close the door on me, enough was enough,” he said.

Roane testified that he needed immediate access, a standard procedure in arresting fugitives.

He denied Chester’s argument that Desetti’s arm was trapped between the door and the banister.

Desetti used the life-sized prop to tell her side of the story.

“Can everybody see this? My arm was right here,” she said. “At this point I am begging for mercy … that’s when I punched him. Fight or flight.”

Chester submitted photos of Desetti’s bruised arms as evidence.

When asked why his wife didn’t take a deal of two misdemeanor charges offered by Boylan, Joel Desetti looked to the ground and smiled.

“You don’t know my wife,” he said while the jury deliberated. “She said she wouldn’t be able to live with herself, pleading to something she’s innocent of.”

Before the jury reached a verdict, Judy Desetti echoed her husband.

“I’m one of the most [religiously] convicted people you’ll ever meet,” she said, clasping a string of rosary beads.

“The jury heard the facts,” she said with confidence.