COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS ~ GREENFIELD DISTRICT COURT ~ FRANKLIN COUNTY
JOHN F. SENDELBACH, Petitioner, v. CATHERINE HENNESSEY, Respondent.
AFFIDAVIT OF JOHN F. SENDELBACH IN SUPPORT OF PETITION FOR HARASSMENT PREVENTION ORDER PURSUANT TO M.G.L. c. 258E
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
I, John F. Sendelbach, residing at xxxxxxxx Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, being duly sworn, state the following under penalty of perjury.
I am a professional artist and sculptor with over forty years of practice. I am the creator of permanent public art installations in Shelburne Falls including the Pothole Fountain and Trolley Gate on the Bridge of Flowers.
I seek a Harassment Prevention Order against Katherine Hennessey of xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Massachusetts.
This petition presents a pattern of willful and malicious conduct by Respondent directed specifically at me occurring between April 2025 and November 30, 2025. This is not a re-litigation of any previously adjudicated matter. Every incident described herein postdates all prior court proceedings. This is a new and independent pattern of escalating harassment culminating in a physical assault on November 30, 2025. Within the petition period alone, the pattern escalated from surveillance in April, to theatrical public performance in May, to property interference in July, to disguised stalking and weaponized police in November, to Moonlight Magic walk-by mockery, to morning trespass and intimidation, to evening physical assault and malicious destruction of my iPhone — all within eight months.
On December 11, 2025, Shelburne Police Sergeant Kurt A. Gilmore issued a formal probable cause finding that Respondent Katherine Hennessey committed Assault and Battery (M.G.L. c. 265 §13A) and Malicious Destruction of Property (M.G.L. c. 266 §126A) against me on November 30, 2025. Respondent’s husband Brook Batteau was separately found to have probable cause for Assault and Battery the same date.
The seven incidents described below satisfy and substantially exceed the requirements of M.G.L. c. 258E. Each is supported by video, audio, police documentation, or sworn neutral eyewitness testimony — or, in the case of Incident 5, my direct testimony as the sole witness to an act that Respondent herself describes differently in a sworn affidavit contradicted by the physical geography of the location.
PREFACE — THE PATTERN THAT PRECEDES THIS PETITION
This petition addresses conduct from April through November 2025. But the Court should understand what preceded it. My first encounter with Respondent occurred on June 6, 2020. Within thirty seconds of our first contact she was twelve inches from my face, uninvited, saying “we’re doing this because we love you.” She was not afraid of me then. She has not been afraid of me at any point since. What followed over the next three years was a sustained campaign: eight false police reports, court filings, defamatory letters to my landlords, and community poisoning — all while Respondent and her family demonstrated by their own conduct that they felt no fear of me whatsoever. The March 2023 show cause hearing ended in No Probable Cause after the clerk magistrate reviewed my evidence for the first time. The September 2024 incident — in which Respondent’s daughter entered my workspace, returned home, and claimed harassment; her father called police; police investigated and found No Crime Involved; and Respondent responded days later by sending defamatory eviction letters to my landlord — is the direct predecessor of the 2025 pattern documented below. This is not a dispute between neighbors. This is one party’s five-year project of harassment, intimidation, and false reporting against another, documented at every stage, escalating to physical assault on November 30, 2025.
On the recorded June 6, 2020 encounter, Respondent stated “we’re doing this for the children” while she and her family falsely accused me of racism in front of those same children. I responded, “I’m doing it for the adults.” This statement, juxtaposed with the later spread of false child-endangerment rumors by her daughter Alouette, reveals the inverted nature of their campaign: I was the one objecting to adults behaving aggressively in front of children. They were the ones using children as instruments of false narrative.
Family members made racially charged statements during the June 2020 organizing, including Alouette Batteau stating “I am around far too many white people” and Brook Batteau telling me to “quit your white whining.” These statements, combined with the coordinated defamation labeling me a racist, indicate that racial animus has been a motivating factor in the five-year campaign against me.
PRIOR PROCEEDINGS —
ESTABLISHED PATTERN OF PERJURY, COORDINATED FALSE NARRATIVE, AND PREEMPTIVE COURT FILINGS
2021 Hearing — Perjury Caught in Real Time
At a 2021 hearing involving Respondent, I presented video evidence showing Respondent locking elbows with another person to physically block my path. The video was reviewed by the judge. When I asked Respondent directly why she had locked elbows to block my way, she denied doing so — despite the fact that the judge had just watched the video showing her doing exactly that. When pressed, she revised her account to claim she had merely grabbed an elbow, without explaining why two people remained elbowed together moving back and forth to block my path for approximately five seconds. The judge had seen the video. Respondent’s denial of what was visible on that video was her first documented instance of perjury in these proceedings. She has been doing it since at least 2021.
Respondent’s Three HPO Filings Against Me — Pattern of Weaponized Court Process
Respondent has filed Harassment Prevention Order petitions against me on three separate occasions. The first was filed in March 2023 and denied. The third was filed December 1, 2025 — the morning after she physically assaulted me — and denied with prejudice by Judge Mazanec on December 15, 2025.
The second filing requires particular attention. On Friday, March 14 or 15, 2025, I observed on the court’s public docket screen that Respondent and her family members had filed HPO petitions against me before Judge Teran, which were denied that same day. When I subsequently attempted to obtain those records, court staff was unable to produce them and directed me to documents from a different date. I am requesting that this Court review the docket for that Friday before Judge Teran to confirm the existence of those filings.
The timing of this second filing is significant and cannot be dismissed as coincidence. My own HPO hearings against Respondent were scheduled for March 17, 2025 before Judge Teran and approximately March 20, 2025 before Judge McLeod. Respondent filed her petitions the Friday immediately before my Monday hearing — preemptively, before I had the opportunity to present my case. This required advance knowledge of my scheduled hearing dates. Court scheduling information is not public. The only way Respondent could have known to file that Friday is if someone with access to court scheduling information told her I was coming. This is the clearest documented evidence of the insider access that has characterized this entire matter — and it explains why, when I appeared before Judge Teran on March 17, the judge’s demeanor suggested he had already formed an impression of me before I spoke a word.
Both of my March 2025 HPO petitions were denied. The courts characterized the conduct primarily as protected petitioning activity under the First Amendment. Those denials did not resolve the matter. The targeting escalated immediately afterward, beginning with the April/May 2025 drive-by gesture at a private residential address.
The Sonny Walters HPO — Obtained Through Coordinated False Narrative, Now Weaponized Against Me
In a prior hearing involving a separate respondent, Sonny Walters, a Harassment Prevention Order was issued against me. The stated basis involved statements made in the presence of children. I was blindsided by the judgment — it was not the focus of the hearing as I understood it and I had no opportunity to respond to that specific finding before it was issued.
The record should reflect what I was actually doing: objecting to adults who were behaving aggressively toward me in the presence of their own children — adults who were falsely accusing me, physically blocking my path, and conducting themselves in a manner I believed was harmful to the very children the judge was concerned about protecting. I was responding to their conduct. I was not the source of it.
The HPO as issued contained no physical restraint. The judge stated explicitly on the record — which I have on audio — that I could approach Sonny Walters, knock on her door, speak to her, and conduct myself as any person would in civil society. The single restriction was that I not speak about the child or child-rearing in the child’s presence. That is what was ordered. That is all that was ordered.
Sonny Walters then went online and publicly stated that she had obtained a restraint to keep me physically away from her. That statement was false. It was defamation. It was directly damaging to my reputation in a community where I live and work. That HPO now sits on my permanent record, available to anyone who wishes to misrepresent it as a finding of danger to children — which is exactly what Respondent’s daughter’s network proceeded to do.
The Bike Incident — My Attempt at Peace, Their Response
In 2024, I noticed that Sonny Walters and her daughter were riding bicycles that had become too small for them. I pass her street regularly — my residence is approximately a quarter mile away and I pass several times daily. I found two appropriate bicycles and brought them to her door as a peace offering, with the secondary and legitimate purpose of correcting her false public statements about the nature of the court order. The judge had explicitly stated I could do exactly this.
I knocked on her door. She came out. She acknowledged she had Covid. I stepped back down the stairs immediately to create distance. She continued talking. At no point did she ask me to leave during the initial conversation. When I raised the defamation issue — explaining that the judge had explicitly stated there was no physical restraint and that I had the audio recording of him saying so — she became agitated and escalating.
At a certain point she rushed toward me with her phone, coming within approximately twelve inches of my face. This is documented on video. She then stopped, stepped back, and said — on the recording — “you’re right, I shouldn’t have gotten in your face like that.” She acknowledged the assault in real time on camera.
She then became sarcastic in front of her daughter — the child the judge was protecting — and said “did I hurt you? Do you want a Band-Aid?” I said I needed a Band-Aid for my soul. She did not take the bikes. She did not retract the false statements. She had just physically rushed me, acknowledged it was wrong, then mocked me for it — all in front of her child. This is the conduct that was occurring in front of children throughout this entire period. I was responding to it. I was not generating it.
Throughout this conversation she stated she had Covid no fewer than ten times. She then rushed within twelve inches of my face. The same community network that spread false claims that I was illegally unmasked and endangering others produced a woman who, by her own repeated admission during this encounter, had active Covid and chose to rush within inches of my face.
The Coordinated Network — Alouette Batteau as the Source
Sonny Walters subsequently approached me at Keystone Market — the same store where Respondent later conducted her own harassment — confronted me aggressively, and stated: “I guess what Alouette said about you going after children is true.” Alouette Batteau is Respondent’s daughter.
A false child-endangerment narrative originating with Respondent’s daughter had traveled through the community and arrived in Sonny Walters’ mouth as established fact — used to accuse me of child abuse to my face in a public place. I called her a fucking bitch. She immediately performed the anticipated reaction for her camera — as if to document my response while ignoring entirely that she had just accused me of child abuse based on a rumor traceable directly to Respondent’s family. This is the coordinated network operating in real time: Respondent’s daughter generates the narrative, it travels through community channels, it arrives in other people’s mouths as established fact, those people confront me, my response to being falsely accused becomes the evidence used against me, and the original false statement is never examined.
Respondent was caught lying under oath in 2021. She was caught lying under oath again on December 15, 2025, when Judge Mazanec denied her petition with prejudice. The Sonny Walters HPO was obtained in a proceeding where Respondent’s family’s false narrative provided the surrounding context. The pattern is not new. It is documented across multiple proceedings, multiple years, and multiple forums. What is new is that this Court now has the complete picture.
INTERFERENCE WITH THREE COMMERCIAL TENANCIES
Respondent has now interfered with every commercial workspace I have occupied over the five-year campaign. This is not incidental. It is systematic economic targeting.
1. 44 State Street (2011 – October 2020, nine years): I was on excellent terms with my landlord the entire time with no problems whatsoever. My studio was directly across the river from the Bridge of Flowers site where I created the major public commissions that defined the largest chapter of my career — I could see the site from my workspace. Respondent allegedly interfered through direct or indirect channels with my landlord. I will testify to exactly what my landlord told me. To protect him from continued harassment, I agreed to vacate — a constructive eviction. I lost nine years of repeat customers and collectors who returned annually, as well as the pipeline for future commissions. I have been afraid to advertise publicly ever since out of fear of renewed targeting. The economic harm from this first displacement has a long tail that continues to the present day.
2. The Mill at Shelburne Falls (approximately 2021 – February 14, 2026): After leaving 44 State Street, original owner John Madocks accepted me immediately upon hearing the facts — thirty seconds to understand I had been railroaded, ten seconds to show me my space. Upon sale to Brad Walker the relationship deteriorated after Respondent sent multiple defamatory letters. The two documented letters from September 2024 characterizing me as dangerous, racist, sexist, transphobic, and threatening are the ones I was able to obtain through police — Walker refused to provide them directly. Walker alluded to earlier letters preceding September 2024 but refused to produce them. The interior space had open-top stall walls with no privacy, preventing full artistic work including welding. I maintained an overlapping tenancy with my State Street space from approximately October 2025 through February 14, 2026, when I formally vacated The Mill — relinquishing my space to Nancy Dole, an 82-year-old bookseller who needed it. The fishbowl-style display visible during Moonlight Magic on November 28, 2025 was at The Mill during this transition period, not at State Street.
3. Neighbors Convenience Store building, State Street, Shelburne Falls (current, from approximately October 2025): This is a completely private workspace with no public windows or displays. I was only two months into this tenancy when the November 30, 2025 morning intrusion occurred. Respondent has now targeted all three successive workspaces I have occupied. My reasonable fear that she will interfere with this tenancy as she interfered with the prior two is grounded in documented prior conduct, not speculation.
DOCUMENTED PHYSICAL HARM — ATRIAL FIBRILLATION
I have been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AFib). This condition emerged in 2020 concurrent with the onset of the campaign by Respondent and her family and has been exacerbated by stress ever since. Each episode carries risk of stroke, heart attack, and death. The medical literature establishes that repeated AFib episodes are self-reinforcing — the more episodes occur, the more the heart learns that pattern as its default.
Encounters with Respondent and her family members reliably trigger AFib episodes. On September 4, 2024, the appearance of Respondent’s daughter Alouette Batteau near my office at The Mill triggered an immediate episode. On November 30, 2025, the physical assault described below triggered another.
The single instance of formal cardiac monitoring in connection with this matter occurred on October 19, 2025. I presented myself to the Massachusetts State Police barracks to file a complaint against Shelburne Police Chief Gregory Bardwell regarding his obstruction of my public records request and refusal to act on Respondent’s documented false police reports. I disclosed to Officer Sheerer at the outset that I was currently in an AFib episode — one that had begun on October 16 following a confrontation with Chief Bardwell and had not resolved in three days. Over the course of my testimony, Officer Sheerer observed my condition and insisted on calling EMS over my initial objection. Paramedics attached a Stryker LIFEPAK 15 cardiac monitor which recorded my heart rate fluctuating between 130 and 230 beats per minute. I have video documentation of the device and reading. Officer Sheerer is a neutral third-party witness to my cardiac state that day.
I live in a state of chronic hypervigilance. I scan for Respondent and her family members every time I move through Shelburne Falls. I look over my shoulder at the grocery store, on the sidewalk, at my rental workspaces. This is the predictable physiological consequence of five years of unpredictable harassment — false police reports, court filings, landlord interference, property trespass, disguised surveillance, weaponized police calls, and physical assault. A Harassment Prevention Order addresses this directly by establishing a legal boundary enforceable by law enforcement, removing the reasonable basis for that vigilance.
RESPONDENT’S CLAIMED FEAR — CONTRADICTED BY HER OWN CONDUCT
Respondent has stated repeatedly — in court filings, in sworn affidavits, and in testimony — that she is afraid to leave her home and that my presence causes her genuine fear. The record of her actual conduct from April through November 2025 directly contradicts every one of these claims.
A person who is genuinely afraid to appear in public does not do the following:
1. Drive to a private residential address where she knows I am present, display her middle finger at me, and drive away laughing. (April/May 2025)
2. Enter a grocery store where she has just watched me walk in, follow me to the back of the store, position herself directly behind me, and laugh loudly at me. (May 21, 2025)
3. Disguise herself in a paper mache mask to attend a public event where she anticipates my presence, then position herself six feet in front of me and stand there for several minutes. (November 22, 2025)
4. Walk directly past my lit workspace window at a public event, make eye contact with me, and laugh. (November 22, 2025)
5. Attend a separate public event six days later, walk directly past my lit and fully visible Mill workspace, make eye contact through the glass, and laugh. (November 28, 2025)
6. Drive onto my rented property the morning of November 30, approach my parked car directly, display a feigned peace sign, then display her middle finger at me twice. (November 30, 2025)
7. Sit front-row at a public event inside a brewery — the most publicly visible seats in the room — on the same evening she later claims to have been living in fear. (November 30, 2025)
8. Exit a brewery to confront a person she claims to fear, strike him repeatedly, seize his phone, and throw it in a river. (November 30, 2025)
None of this is the behavior of a person afraid to leave her house. It is the behavior of a person who seeks me out, initiates contact, escalates encounters, and then characterizes herself as the victim in sworn filings.
At the December 15, 2025 hearing, Judge Mazanec reviewed the Keystone Market video from May 21, 2025. He watched Respondent smile on her way into the store. He watched her give me the finger at her car. He watched her laugh and rock forward with amusement as she drove away. He denied her petition with prejudice. Her claimed fear was not visible in the video because it does not exist.
PRECEDENT OF EXTREME ALLEGATIONS — MARCH 2023
The pattern of extreme, uninvestigated allegations by Respondent is not new. On March 2, 2023, Respondent made a formal written statement to Shelburne Police Officers Pettengill and Jenkins claiming she believed I would “try to hurt or even kill me or members of my family.” The same statement implied I would harm her dog. Standard police protocol when someone makes a formal homicidal threat allegation is immediate contact with the named individual to investigate. Officers Pettengill and Jenkins drove to Respondent’s residence. They never came to me. They never interviewed me about these claims. They charged me with criminal harassment the following day based entirely on Respondent’s account — without reviewing a single piece of my exculpatory evidence, which existed at the time.
If the officers genuinely believed the homicidal allegation, their response would have been immediate and direct contact with me. They did not believe it — but they weaponized the surrounding narrative to charge me anyway. This demonstrates the pattern that has characterized this entire matter: Respondent makes extreme allegations, police act on the surrounding material without investigating the extremes, and those allegations remain on record against me without ever being tested. The show-cause hearing on that complaint resulted in a finding of No Probable Cause after the clerk magistrate reviewed my evidence for the first time.
The same woman who formally alleged I might murder her family then physically assaulted me on November 30, 2025. She was not afraid of me. She was using the language of fear as a legal instrument.
INCIDENT HISTORY — APRIL THROUGH NOVEMBER 2025
The following seven incidents constitute the new, independent pattern of willful and malicious conduct forming the basis of this petition. All occurred after the denial of prior proceedings.
INCIDENT 1 — APRIL/MAY 2025: SURVEILLANCE DRIVE-UP AT PRIVATE RESIDENTIAL ADDRESS
In April or May 2025, Respondent drove to a private residential address where I was present. Respondent had no legitimate purpose at that location and no prior connection to it. Through her vehicle window, Respondent displayed her middle finger at me, laughed, and drove away.
This address is not my residence. It is not associated with any prior encounter between us. Respondent’s appearance there — and her deliberate obscene gesture — demonstrates that she was actively tracking my whereabouts and chose to make her presence known in a manner calculated to intimidate. This conduct is consistent with stalking-type behavior described in M.G.L. c. 265 §43. This encounter triggered an AFib episode.
INCIDENT 2 — MAY 21, 2025: KEYSTONE MARKET
On May 21, 2025, I approached Keystone Market on Bridge Street, Shelburne Falls through the side alley from the parking lot behind the building, as I do almost every day. As I came up the alley before turning toward the entrance, I saw Respondent getting out of her car across Bridge Street. She appeared to be heading toward the store.
I had no reason to avoid her. The Facebook video Alouette Batteau had posted in June 2020 — the primary instrument of public defamation against me for nearly five years — had been taken down on March 18, 2025, the day after I filed my HPO application. I went inside and proceeded to the back deli counter to get my usual order.
As I made my way back toward the front of the store, Respondent had positioned herself directly behind me. I heard her emit a loud, mocking laugh. I walked another five feet. She continued laughing. I turned around to face her. This is the moment she characterizes in her sworn affidavit as me “puffing myself up” — a description that does not match what occurred. I said nothing to her. She then walked past me, coming within approximately two feet of my person, showing no sign of fear, no flinching, no attempt to increase distance.
When she was approximately fifteen to twenty feet away, I said quietly: “You’ve got a lawsuit coming.” That single sentence — spoken calmly from a distance — is what caused Respondent to stop in the middle of the store and scream “I FEEL UNSAFE” at the top of her lungs. I briefly described to the cashier what Respondent had been doing to me for five years. I then walked out and seated myself at the café table outside, approximately thirty feet from her car, to document what she did next.
Respondent apparently saw me through the store window while completing her purchase. She persuaded the store owner to walk her across the street — leading him to believe I posed a threat. As the owner walked her across, Respondent gave me a large smile while his back was turned. When she reached her car and he was no longer watching, she gave me the middle finger through the window. As she drove away I captured on video that she was laughing hard, her body rocking forward with amusement.
There is no interior store surveillance footage. What I have described is my direct testimony. The exterior video — Respondent smiling, giving the finger, laughing as she drives away — documents her state of mind throughout. Judge Mazanec reviewed this video on December 15, 2025 and denied Respondent’s petition with prejudice.
INCIDENT 3 — JULY 21, 2025: CRAIGSLIST BOAT LISTING
On July 21, 2025, my rowboat — stored lawfully at a location on the Deerfield River with the property owner’s permission — appeared for sale on Craigslist under an anonymous listing I did not create and did not authorize.
I reported this to Shelburne Police Chief Gregory Bardwell by email at 10:35 AM. Chief Bardwell acknowledged the report and sent a removal request to the anonymous seller. The listing was taken down. No investigation of the seller’s identity was conducted.
The photograph in the listing appears to have been taken from an elevated vantage point consistent with the deck of Floodwater Brewing, which overlooks the river location where my boat is stored. Respondent’s daughter Alouette Batteau had an art show at Floodwater Brewing on July 5, 2025 — sixteen days before the listing appeared — giving her direct access to that deck and that vantage point.
This is not the first time Respondent’s family has used my boat as an instrument of harassment. A prior false police report by Respondent’s family specifically referenced this same boat. The Craigslist listing is consistent with the established pattern of property-based harassment.
INCIDENT 4 — NOVEMBER 22, 2025: DISGUISED SURVEILLANCE, WEAPONIZED POLICE CALL, AND PARTING TAUNT
On the evening of November 22, 2025, I attended a public art installation light show in downtown Shelburne Falls. I had set up a display at my workspace at The Mill, visible through the windows — essentially a fishbowl to passersby. During the event, I observed Respondent and her daughter Alouette Batteau walking past. I saw them; they saw me. Respondent laughed. Alouette appeared noticeably uncomfortable and moved away quickly. The contrast is observable: the daughter’s response resembled genuine discomfort; the mother’s resembled amusement.
Later in the evening, I was present at the light show on the Iron Bridge. Respondent was also there. In her own sworn affidavit filed December 1, 2025, Respondent states: “I was actually wearing a giant paper mache frog mask because I suspected that Mr. Sendelbach might show up to the exhibit and I didn’t want him to recognize me.”
This is not avoidance. Respondent anticipated my presence, chose to attend anyway, disguised herself to observe me undetected, and then positioned herself directly in my path approximately six feet away. She stood there while I spoke publicly for several minutes. She did not retreat. She did not leave. She was not in distress. She knew exactly who I was the entire time. A conspicuous frog mask does not support genuine hiding — it suggests an intent to surveil while maintaining plausible deniability.
I have a fourteen-minute video and full transcript of this encounter. At no point did I approach Respondent, threaten her, or direct any statement at her. I spoke publicly while she chose to position herself nearby. Nothing I said constitutes harassment of any person. The video shows clear escape routes available to Respondent at all times; she remained in place by choice. Judge Mazanec reviewed this video and agreed my conduct was entirely lawful.
While I was standing still and speaking publicly, Respondent called the Shelburne Police Department. Officer Bellinger subsequently appeared at the private parking lot of The Mill, where I had driven to review footage, and stated he had received a call. This is the same pattern as prior false reports: Respondent positions herself near me, I respond to her presence, she calls police on my lawful activity. Officer Bellinger found nothing actionable.
Respondent’s final act of the evening was to approach me directly, say “John, I hope you get the help you need,” and walk away at a leisurely pace. She was not fleeing. She had just called police on a person for standing still speaking in public, and she delivered a parting taunt — framing my accurate public account of documented events as evidence of mental illness. This is not fear. This is contempt.
During the light show I spoke publicly and invited those present to visit me at Moonlight Magic — the annual post-Thanksgiving public event in Shelburne Falls scheduled for Friday, November 28, 2025. The significance of what happened six days later is documented in Incident 5 below.
INCIDENT 5 — NOVEMBER 28, 2025: MOONLIGHT MAGIC WALK-BY
On the evening of November 28, 2025 — six days after calling police claiming fear of my presence at a public event — Respondent attended Moonlight Magic in downtown Shelburne Falls. She walked past my workspace at The Mill at Shelburne Falls, where I had set up a fishbowl-style display during the overlapping transition period between my Mill tenancy and my new private workspace on State Street. The Mill workspace had large windows fully visible from the public sidewalk. My State Street workspace, by contrast, is completely private with no public windows or displays.
As Respondent and her daughter Alouette Batteau passed my Mill window, Respondent made direct eye contact with me through the glass and laughed. Her daughter’s reaction was markedly different: Alouette appeared anxious and moved quickly past, consistent with a person who did not want to be seen. Respondent showed no such discomfort. She sought the eye contact. She laughed.
This incident is the middle panel of a three-part sequence: November 22 (weaponized police call claiming fear), November 28 (brazen public mockery six days later), November 30 (physical assault two days later). A person afraid to leave her home does not walk past her alleged tormentor’s lit fishbowl workspace, make eye contact through the glass, and laugh. A person conducting a deliberate campaign of intimidation does exactly that.
Brook Batteau’s admission to Zachary Livingston two days later — that I had “been after his family for five years” — confirms the assault was premeditated. The November 28 walk-by was not spontaneous. It was escalation with a trajectory.
INCIDENT 6 — NOVEMBER 30, 2025 (MORNING): TRESPASS AND INTIMIDATION AT MY RENTAL WORKSPACE
On the morning of November 30, 2025, I was present at my rental workspace at the Neighbors Convenience Store building on State Street, Shelburne Falls — a completely private space with no public windows or displays. My previous workspace at The Mill had become untenable after Respondent sent written defamatory communications to that landlord in September 2024 — characterizing me as dangerous, racist, sexist, transphobic, and threatening, and explicitly requesting my eviction — causing a deterioration of that tenancy and ultimately my departure.
Respondent drove onto my rented property without invitation or legitimate purpose. She drove directly to my parked car — past the store entrance and to the far end of the lot where my car was parked, partially screened by the building. Through her vehicle window, she initially smiled at me and displayed a peace sign. I did not respond. She then flipped her hand to display her middle finger, mouthed profanity at me, and drove approximately ten feet before stopping again to repeat the gesture. She then sped away. This rapid shift from feigned friendliness to aggression was unpredictable — and it occurred on property I rent, hours before the evening assault.
I immediately called Shelburne Police. Sergeant Gilmore responded, came to the scene, took my statement, and walked the property line with me so I could show him exactly where Respondent had driven and where I was standing. Sergeant Gilmore subsequently reviewed his body camera footage from that response. He returned to clarify the property line geography with me — confirming he had absorbed the details of the morning incident before conducting his December 11, 2025 probable cause investigation into the evening assault.
I also attempted to locate this event on the gas station surveillance footage with the assistance of my current landlord. We spent approximately twenty to twenty-five minutes searching the footage. I did not know the precise time of the incident and was unable to isolate the relevant clip.
In her December 1, 2025 affidavit, Respondent claimed she drove into the lot to get a newspaper but “chose to drive away” upon seeing me. This account does not hold up geographically. The store entrance is near the street end of the building. My car was parked at the far end, partially screened by the building itself. A person entering to buy a newspaper would have no reason to drive past the entrance to my position. Respondent drove directly to where I was. The geography contradicts her cover story.
Respondent has now appeared at three consecutive locations I have occupied: my former studio at 44 State Street, The Mill at Shelburne Falls, and now my current rental workspace. She is tracking my locations. My reasonable fear that she will interfere with this tenancy — as she has interfered with two prior ones — is grounded in documented prior conduct.
INCIDENT 7 — NOVEMBER 30, 2025 (EVENING): PHYSICAL ASSAULT, EVIDENCE DESTRUCTION, AND SECOND ASSAULT
That same evening, I was standing on the public sidewalk outside Floodwater Brewing at 40 State Street, Buckland, lawfully recording. I had observed a car similar to Respondent’s parked nearby and was documenting the license plate for evidentiary purposes related to the morning incident. I had not entered the brewery.
I have a long and friendly history with Zachary Livingston, owner of Floodwater Brewing. We were neighboring tenants at 44 State Street when he was building out his space. I helped him organize the pour of a concrete floor in the basement and introduced him to zinc as a bar top material — he built his bar tops in zinc as a result. We have maintained a friendship since. Mr. Livingston knew Respondent and her husband Brook Batteau as regular patrons. They were present that evening for a musical event, seated front row — the most publicly visible seats in the room. This is relevant: Respondent’s claimed fear of appearing in public did not prevent her from occupying the most prominent seats at a public event on the same evening she later swore she was afraid to leave her home.
An individual named Tom Del Negro — guitarist in the Wonder Twins duo (with brother AJ Del Negro on bass), who has performed regularly at Floodwater Brewing and collaborated with Respondent’s daughter Alouette Batteau on guitar for their 2023 solo EP ‘Confession Cruise’ — exited the brewery screaming profanities at me (‘idiot,’ ‘asshole’), verbally assaulting me despite never having met me. This occurred before any possible conveyance of backstory, suggesting he had been primed with prior narratives about me, consistent with Respondent’s documented pattern of poisoning community relationships in advance of confrontations.
Brook Batteau then charged out of the brewery and shoved me hard with both hands, causing me to fall backward off the curb to the pavement. He then jumped me from behind and began punching me. I resisted and managed to get up, losing one Croc shoe in the process. My actively recording iPhone had fallen to the road, screen lit and face up, still recording.
Respondent then exited the brewery and got directly in my face. I turned to face her without retaliating. She struck me repeatedly in the head and face, knocking my glasses askew. A second individual grabbed both my elbows from behind and pinned my arms while Respondent continued striking me. I did not retaliate. I screamed for help. Approximately eight to ten bystanders were present. None intervened. I broke free.
Zachary Livingston retrieved my lost Croc from the ground and returned it to me. Respondent then seized my still-recording iPhone from the road, walked approximately seventy-five feet to the bank of the Deerfield River, and threw the lit phone into the river. I watched the lit screen arc into the water approximately thirty feet from the bank. Respondent seized the recording device specifically to destroy the evidence of the assault that had just been captured on it. This constitutes both theft and malicious destruction of property.
As I walked back toward the group after witnessing the phone thrown in the river, Respondent followed me from behind and continued punching and kicking me, attempting to trip me. This second, separate act of battery — occurring approximately thirty seconds after the initial assault and after the destruction of evidence — constitutes a distinct additional violation of M.G.L. c. 265 §13A against a 60-year-old man with a documented cardiac condition.
Respondent’s affidavit claimed she stood quietly with her hands in her pockets throughout. Interior surveillance footage reviewed by Sergeant Gilmore shows Respondent outside the brewery for at least seven continuous minutes. Her affidavit also implied it was she who retrieved my Croc and tried to return it. What she actually retrieved from the ground was my recording phone. She walked it to the river and threw it in.
Neutral Eyewitness — Zachary Livingston
Mr. Livingston provided a sworn written statement to Sergeant Gilmore on December 9, 2025. Despite his prior friendship with both parties, he reported what he witnessed:
"Brook exited the brewery and Brook pushed John. John fell to the ground and Brook told John to leave his family alone. I asked Brook why he pushed him and Brook responded to the effect of ‘You don’t understand, John has been after my family for 5 years.’ I said something to the effect of ‘But you still shouldn’t have pushed him.’"
Mr. Livingston confirmed I did not have my phone after the incident, retrieved my shoe from the ground, and stated: “it was clear that Hennessey and Batteau did not have to go outside to confront Sendelbach as he was filming.” Mr. Livingston told Brook Batteau to leave the premises that evening.
Brook Batteau’s admission to Mr. Livingston — “you don’t understand, John has been after my family for five years” — confirms premeditation: this assault was not spontaneous but the culmination of a deliberate sustained campaign. Mr. Batteau was present at the December 15, 2025 hearing. Respondent did not call him as a witness. He offered no testimony. The man who told a neutral eyewitness with conviction that I had been “after his family for five years” chose silence when he had the opportunity to say so under oath.
Probable Cause Finding — December 11, 2025
Sergeant Kurt A. Gilmore issued a formal probable cause determination:
Katherine Hennessey: M.G.L. c. 265 §13A — Assault & Battery (2 separate incidents); M.G.L. c. 266 §126A — Malicious Destruction of Property
Brook Batteau: M.G.L. c. 265 §13A — Assault and Battery
Incident report 25SHL-114-OF, additional cases 25SHL-46-AR and 25SHL-47-AR.
Cardiac Impact
Following the November 30, 2025 assault, I experienced an AFib episode consistent with my documented condition. I did not seek EMS that night, but the episode was comparable in intensity to the instance of formal cardiac monitoring in this matter — October 19, 2025, LIFEPAK 15 reading of 130–230 BPM obtained in the presence of Officer Sheerer of the Massachusetts State Police.
RESPONDENT’S FALSE IMPLICATION REGARDING HER DOG
Respondent’s December 1, 2025 HPO filing included a request that the Court order me not to harm, threaten, or interfere with her dog “Ziggy.” This implies a threat to an animal on my part. This implication is false. I have owned dogs my entire adult life. My most recent dog, Totem, was my companion for sixteen years and died in 2012. I have not gotten another dog since because I could not bear the loss again. Throughout my adult life I have cared for friends’ dogs during travel, accompanied neighbors on dog walks, and developed relationships with dogs throughout this community. On one occasion I sustained a hand injury while physically intervening to break up a dog fight to protect another person’s animal. The Bridge of Flowers head gardener — whose apartment I rented during an earlier period — entrusted me with the care of her dog during her absences. I have seen Respondent’s dog Ziggy exactly once, in March 2023. The implication is designed to paint a portrait of a dangerous person to a judge who does not know me. It is an example of the method: when facts are unavailable, fabricate character.
THE DECEMBER 15, 2025 HEARING — PERJURY IN REAL TIME
At the December 15, 2025 hearing before Judge Mazanec on Respondent’s third HPO petition, several significant things occurred.
During my testimony, the courtroom first learned of Sergeant Gilmore’s probable cause findings — Assault and Battery and Malicious Destruction of Property against Respondent; Assault and Battery against her husband. Respondent appeared shocked. The judge offered both Respondent and her husband, who was seated in the courtroom throughout, time to review the six-page police report. They declined. The judge then read the report silently for approximately ten minutes. He put the session on hold, handled other matters, and recalled the parties approximately an hour and a half later — having had substantial time to absorb the contradictions between the report and Respondent’s affidavit.
Brook Batteau, against whom probable cause for Assault and Battery had been formally found, was present in the courtroom throughout this hearing. Respondent did not call him as a witness. He did not testify. He had told Zachary Livingston on the night of the assault that I had “been after his family for five years.” He chose not to repeat that under oath.
When the hearing resumed, Judge Mazanec interrogated Respondent using the police report as his guide. Sergeant Gilmore’s report documented Respondent’s prior statement that she gives everyone the finger all the time and could not recall whether she had given me the finger at Keystone. Judge Mazanec read this portion back to Respondent and asked her about the gesture. Her answer — given under oath, in direct response to a judge reading her own prior statement back to her — was that she pushes her glasses up frequently and people often mistake it for a middle finger. She did not attempt to reconcile this with her prior statement. She simply replaced it with a new one. The judge had the original in front of him.
In the same verbal testimony, Respondent claimed “he follows us all the time” without providing any supporting evidence. The documented record shows the opposite: Respondent has located me at a private residential address, my rental workspace, my grocery store, and public events — all my regular locations, none of them hers. I have never appeared at her residence or workplace. The “following” allegation inverts the documented pattern.
Respondent also claimed in testimony that my website and YouTube content called community members KKK members, referencing this as evidence of harassment beginning November 22. The fourteen-minute video of the November 22 light show encounter proves I said no such thing that night. My online writing made analytical comparisons between the tactics used against me — coordinated defamation, economic exclusion, community ostracism — and the historical methods of the Ku Klux Klan as documented in this region, including cross-burnings in the Deerfield River valley in the 1920s. I never called anyone a KKK member. Conversely, Respondent’s own 2020 audio contains her saying to me directly: “I don’t hang out with KKK members either, but here we are” — applying that label to me. In sworn court testimony five years later, she accused me of the exact characterization she had applied to me on recorded audio. The audio exists.
Respondent’s affidavit implied familiarity with my online content, citing alleged KKK references as evidence of eight days of harassment beginning November 22. Her verbal testimony then contradicted this: “I never go to those sites.” She provided no evidence for the “eight days of harassment” claim.
Judge Mazanec denied Respondent’s petition with prejudice. This is not an ordinary denial. It is a finding of bad faith. Having watched the Keystone video — Respondent smiling, giving the finger, laughing as she drove away — and having seen the contradictions between her sworn affidavit and the police report unfold in real time, the judge reached the conclusion this evidence compels.
This pattern — saying whatever is convenient in the moment, without concern for consistency with prior sworn statements — has characterized Respondent’s conduct across five years and multiple forums. She has operated this way because she has faced no consequences for it. This Court has now seen the pattern directly.
BASIS FOR HARASSMENT PREVENTION ORDER
The foregoing incidents, all occurring between April and November 2025, constitute a pattern of willful and malicious conduct directed specifically at me, satisfying and substantially exceeding M.G.L. c. 258E:
- Three or more qualifying acts: Seven discrete incidents are documented above. Any three independently satisfy the statutory threshold. Incident 7 carries a police probable cause finding for two separate acts of Assault and Battery and Malicious Destruction of Property.
- Directed specifically at Petitioner: Every incident occurred at a location I regularly use — my rental workspace, my grocery store, my boat storage, public events, a private residential address. None occurred at Respondent’s home or workplace. The pattern of targeting is explicit and documented.
- Substantial emotional distress: Respondent’s conduct has produced chronic hypervigilance documented by a state police officer who called EMS on my behalf on October 19, 2025. The LIFEPAK 15 reading of 130–230 BPM is the physiological record of what this five-year campaign has done to my body. A reasonable person subjected to this pattern — culminating in a physical assault during which his phone was seized and thrown in a river — would suffer substantial emotional distress. I have been living it continuously.
- Escalating trajectory: Within the petition period alone, the pattern escalated from surveillance in April, to theatrical public performance in May, to property interference in July, to disguised stalking and weaponized police in November, to Moonlight Magic walk-by mockery, to morning trespass and intimidation, to evening physical assault and evidence destruction — all within eight months.
- Ongoing threat to tenancy and livelihood: Respondent has now targeted three consecutive workspaces I have occupied and has sent defamatory communications to at least two commercial landlords. My reasonable fear that she will interfere with my current tenancy is grounded in documented prior conduct, not speculation.
REQUESTED RELIEF
I respectfully request that this Court issue a Harassment Prevention Order:
1. Prohibiting Respondent from contacting me by any means;
2. Prohibiting Respondent from coming within 100 yards of my person;
3. Prohibiting Respondent from coming within 100 yards of my residence at 75B Main Street, Shelburne Falls, MA;
4. Prohibiting Respondent from coming within 100 yards of my workspace at 195 State Street (Neighbors Convenience Store building), Shelburne Falls, MA;
5. Prohibiting Respondent from entering or coming within 100 yards of Keystone Market, Shelburne Falls, MA;
6. Prohibiting Respondent from entering or coming within 100 yards of Floodwater Brewing, 40 State Street, Buckland, MA;
7. Prohibiting Respondent from entering or coming within 100 yards of The Mill at Shelburne Falls, 45 Conway Street, Buckland, MA;
8. Such other relief as the Court deems just and appropriate.
VERIFICATION
I, John F. Sendelbach, declare under penalty of perjury pursuant to the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief. I am prepared to provide this Court with the following supporting documentation:
Video: Keystone Market exterior sequence (May 21, 2025); LIFEPAK 15 cardiac monitor reading (October 19, 2025); November 22, 2025 light show encounter (14 minutes); Bike incident / Sonny Walters confrontation (audio/video)
Police documentation: Incident Report 25SHL-114-OF (Sergeant Gilmore, December 11, 2025); cases 25SHL-46-AR and 25SHL-47-AR; November 30, 2025 morning response report and Gilmore body camera footage; Craigslist complaint and Chief Bardwell correspondence (July 21, 2025); Incident Report 24SHL-109-OF (September 4, 2024, Status: No Crime Involved); Officers Pettengill and Jenkins report 23SHL-8-AR (March 3, 2023)
Court records: Docket 2541RO000063 — Respondent’s December 1, 2025 HPO petition, denied December 15, 2025, Judge William F. Mazanec III; Sonny Walters HPO transcript establishing verbal-only restriction; March 17, 2025 and March 20, 2025 HPO hearing transcripts; docket for Friday March 15, 2025 before Judge Teran (requested for Court review)
Written defamatory communications: Respondent’s September 2024 letters to landlord Brad Walker, Below the Dam LLC
Audio: June 6, 2020 recording of Respondent’s first contact (“we’re doing this because we love you”; “I don’t hang out with KKK members either, but here we are”; racial statements by family members)
Chart: Hennessey Police Report Sequence 2020–2023 documenting all eight reports, dates, and outcomes
Full timeline and documentation of interference with all three commercial tenancies
___________________________________
John F. Sendelbach
Shelburne Falls, MA 01370
Signed under the pains and penalties of perjury this _______ day of _______________, 2026.
