Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 12, 1994 TAG: 9401120096
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MANASSAS LENGTH: Medium
On the second day of his wife's malicious wounding trial, Bobbitt disputed a court record that a defense lawyer said showed Bobbitt pleaded guilty to assaulting his wife, Lorena.
"I never pleaded guilty to nothing," Bobbitt said.
Lorena Bobbitt, 24, is charged with malicious wounding for cutting off her husband's penis after he came home June 23 from a night of drinking.
If convicted, the Ecuadoran-born manicurist could get up to 20 years in prison and be deported.
Bobbitt, 26, was acquitted late last year of assaulting his wife.
The defense opened its case Tuesday by calling John Bobbitt to the stand as an "adverse" witness. On Monday, he testified for the prosecution, which rested its case Tuesday morning.
Both times, and in his own trial in November, he denied ever forcing his wife to have sex.
Lorena Bobbitt contends that prolonged sexual, physical and verbal abuse by Bobbitt during their four-year marriage forced her to cut off his penis in an "irresistible impulse." John Bobbitt is seeking a divorce.
Defense attorney Blair Howard showed John Bobbitt records from a court case that the lawyer said showed he pleaded guilty in March 1991 to assaulting his wife.
Bobbitt disputed the records. Commonwealth's Attorney Paul B. Ebert said the court did not issue a final finding of guilt in the case.
"I could never hit my wife," Bobbitt said.
Instead, Bobbitt said, his wife sometimes assaulted him.
In one instance, he said, she got upset when they weren't allowed in a restaurant because he was wearing sneakers and began hitting him as they drove home.
Detective Peter J. Weintz, one of the last prosecution witnesses, said Lorena Bobbitt told him that her husband forced himself on her early June 23 and, when she complained to him afterward, said he didn't care about her feelings.
" `If he wanted to make love, he should have asked me,' " the detective quoted her as saying.
After severing the penis that day, Lorena Bobbitt drove off and threw it from her car window. She later directed officers to the location, where the penis was recovered by Howard Perry, a rescue squad member.
By that time, Bobbitt had arrived at Prince William Hospital, where he was examined by Dr. James T. Sehn.
"There was nothing but a large amount of blood where the penis should have been," said Sehn, a urologist who reattached the organ in an operation that lasted about nine hours. "It appeared it had been severed right at the body wall."
Sehn said it is still uncertain how well the reattached penis will function.
by CNB