She was driving home after dropping off a copy of her newly issued protection from abuse order at the police station, when the woman said that she noticed her ex-boyfriend — the man ordered to stay away — waiting in his pickup truck outside her house.
The same day Nicholas Leach III also called her at least a dozen times, the woman testified on Thursday at a preliminary hearing for the 44-year-old Bensalem man who is charged with multiple counts of stalking and harassment.
Before his latest arrest on March 15, Lower Southampton police say, Leach was arrested twice for violating the Feb. 20 protection order, which bans him from direct or indirect contact with his ex, whom Leach dated for 2½ years.
On the witness stand, his ex-girlfriend recounted several of the alleged incidents and encounters with Leach after he was ordered to stay away from her.
 |
| Nicholas Leach III |
The day after the year-long protection order was finalized, she told the court, Leach called her more than 40 times. He also showed up at her job, where he left her car keys at the front desk as well as a handwritten note.
On cross examination, the woman said that she had asked Leach to return the keys weeks earlier, but she never asked him to bring them to her workplace.
A Bucks County judge found Leach guilty of violating the PFA order the first time on March 6, and gave him a 72-hour suspended sentence with time served. Five days later, the woman testified, that she returned home after a brief trip to find her garage windows and door were broken, and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle missing.
The calls from Leach continued, she said. Leach sometimes even blocked his phone number but left voice mail messages when he did so, she testified.
Did you get more calls? Bucks County prosecutor Joanna Cerino asked.
“Every day that week,” she replied.
Public defender Laura Riba questioned how the woman could be sure that it was Leach calling from all the blocked numbers. The woman answered that the day the PFA was finalized, a caller — she says it was Leach — left a voice mail with only a breathing sound.
“You could identify his breathing?” public defender Laura Riba asked.
“Absolutely,” the woman replied.
The woman’s son, who lives with her, testified that he had an encounter with Leach two days after the protection order was issued.
The man said he was leaving for work about 6 a.m. when he saw Leach, dressed in black, walking near their house. When he confronted Leach, the son said, he responded that he was out “exercising.”
Leach started chasing the man after he announced he was calling police, but then backed off, the son said. The man then said he started following Leach — to make sure he didn’t escape before police arrived and were able to arrest him for violating the PFA.
Lower Southampton District Judge John Waltman was also called as a prosecution witness at the hearing. He testified that when Leach appeared before him for an arraignment on the first PFA violation he told Leach not to contact the woman.
“He got angry and said that he wasn’t going to stay away,” Waltman testified. “He was highly agitated, upset he was arrested and upset about the whole situation.”
The district judge testified that Leach did not appear as angry when he arraigned him a second time for a PFA violation. Waltman said Leach told him that he didn’t want to hurt his ex, but give her flowers.
But Leach did threaten to cut off the penis of his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend, Waltman added.
Northampton District Judge William Benz held Leach for trial on all charges, including a newly added burglary charge, which replaced one of the defiant trespassing charges. He remains in Bucks County prison in lieu of 10 percent of $50,000 bail as well as 10 percent of $100,000 for the second PFA violation.
Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@phillyBurbs.com Twitter: @jociavaglia.
No comments:
Post a Comment