Commonwealth v. E.J.

E.J. and his wife were going through a separation when the wife reported to police that E.J. had taken her back to his apartment against her will, choked her to the point she became unconscious, put a knife to her throat and stole her cell phone. Police took photographs of numerous red marks on her neck that she claimed were the result of strangulation. E.J. was charged with serious felony assault offenses and adamantly maintained his innocence. At trial, the top Philly defense attorney, Patrick Link unleashed an enormous amount of evidence on the wife during cross-examination. The smoking gun was a series of text messages and photographs that the wife had sent to her boss, with whom she was secretly carrying on an affair with. Specifically, there were photos of hickies all over her neck that were taken just three days prior to the “incident” with E.J. and accompanying text messages that attributed the hickies to her boss, which she claimed were so prevalent, not even make-up could cover them up. These were the same “injuries” the police photographed that they claimed were marks from strangulation. After catching the wife in numerous lies, and establishing that she had motive to lie because of the child custody claim she made one day after the “incident”, E.J. was swiftly found not guilty of all charges.