VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT: June 2020 ~ June 2026
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| When I subsequently reported Alouette Batteau's March 23, 2026 public Instagram post — captioned "this one goes out to my stalker" with the lyric overlay "I never wished so much to k1ll a man with my bare hands," published while her parents were on bail for assaulting me — Chief Bardwell responded in writing that it appeared to be "part of a musical performance" |
VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT — SHORT FORM
Commonwealth v. Hennessey
Docket 2641CR000158
Commonwealth v. Batteau
Docket 2641CR000159
Section 1 — Emotional Impact
Everything that happened to me on June 6, 2020, and in the six years that followed, was avoidable. In roughly two minutes that afternoon, there were four separate moments when the people involved could have simply left me alone. None of them did.
I was documenting an unannounced street closure near my studio when Sonny Walters approached and refused to leave me alone despite repeated requests. Her persistence drew a crowd. Katherine Hennessey then closed to within inches of my face with fists clenched while I was backed against the bridge railing. I broke free and walked away. Hennessey, Walters, and Alouette Batteau followed me. After about seventy-five feet I turned to address them. Hennessey flagged down police, who took no action. A photograph from that moment shows Sonny Walters' daughter standing three feet from the center of the confrontation. When I walked away a second time, they followed again. Hennessey locked elbows with another person to block my path and got in my face once more.
Alouette Batteau filmed the sequence, removed the context of my repeated attempts to disengage, and posted the edited clip publicly. It was never taken down. That decision launched a six-year campaign of harassment, false reports, and public accusations that destroyed my reputation and professional standing in the community where I have lived and worked for eighteen years.
The effects remain with me every day. I experience acute anxiety on the bridges, the street where my studio is located, and in other parts of Shelburne Falls. I have left a light on in my apartment every night for six years out of fear — a complete reversal of a lifelong commitment to energy conservation. I now lock my door every time I leave. I live with chronic hypervigilance and scan for the defendants whenever I move through town. These are not temporary reactions; six years of this has fundamentally altered my sense of safety in my own community.
My relationship with my partner has been severely damaged. I stopped discussing the case with her to shield her from the stress, which left me handling everything in isolation. My father and mother both died during this period. I have had no meaningful support system.
I developed symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder after the November 30, 2025 assault. The mechanism that produced that assault appears to continue: as recently as late May 2026, while on bail, Katherine Hennessey was publicly expressing hostility toward the Commonwealth's key witness.
Section 2 — Physical Impact
In late 2020 I was hospitalized and diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, which my physician attributed to the chronic stress of the campaign. What began as episodic has become persistent and unremitting. As of June 2026, I have been in continuous atrial fibrillation for months. Every physical task is harder: climbing stairs feels like five flights; bending to tie my shoes causes dizziness upon standing; minimal exertion produces disproportionate fatigue. I am aware of my heart condition every waking moment. Atrial fibrillation carries serious risks of stroke, heart attack, and permanent disability. On October 19, 2025, six weeks before the assault, State Police documented my heart rate fluctuating between 130 and 230 beats per minute.
On November 30, 2025, I sustained more than thirty blows to the head and face in two separate assaults. Brook Batteau shoved me backward off the curb, jumped on me while I was on the ground, and punched me repeatedly. Katherine Hennessey then punched and shoved me. An unidentified male pinned my arms from behind, allowing Hennessey to strike my head and face freely. She seized my still-recording iPhone and threw it into the Deerfield River. She continued assaulting me as I tried to get away. The physical and cardiac consequences of that day remain with me.
Section 3 — Financial Impact
One iPhone SE was destroyed in the assault; replacement cost is documented by receipt in the court file. I am a metalworker, sculptor, and public artist with thirty years of permanent installations in this community. The sustained reputational damage from the 2020 campaign — still appearing in top Google results for my name — has made it impossible to pursue commissions at the scale I previously operated. I have sustained my income through an unrelated eBay resale business for years.
I lost my nine-year studio at 44 State Street and have been unable to secure another welding-capable space despite years of searching. In 2023 I built a brick patio and installed gates at the Mill to create an outdoor welding area and purchased equipment. Hennessey's defamatory letters to the landlord ended that arrangement before it began. The equipment remains unused. I was forced to sell the majority of my professional inventory at scrap value.
Section 4 — Sentence Recommendation
I am requesting a custodial sentence for Katherine Hennessey and a permanent no-contact, stay-away order as a condition of any sentence.
The conduct did not begin or end on November 30, 2025. It followed a documented pattern of escalation over six years during which non-custodial responses produced no deterrence. Social media threats and hostility in 2020 became written predictions of harm in 2024, which became physical assault in 2025, which was followed by further public expressions of violence in 2026 while the defendants were on bail. Each escalation occurred after institutional inaction. A non-custodial sentence will be received as permission to continue.
Katherine Hennessey has never acknowledged responsibility. Every attempt I made at de-escalation or resolution was treated as weakness and invited further aggression. Only a meaningful custodial sentence and permanent separation can protect me and interrupt this pattern.
Regarding Brook Batteau, I leave sentencing to the Court's discretion.
The Black Stones of Africa remain on the Bridge of Flowers. I remain in this community. I ask the Court to make that mean something.
John F. Sendelbach
Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
June 2026
VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT — LONG FORM
District Attorney Supplemental — Full Record
Office of the District Attorney, Northwestern District
RE: Commonwealth v. Catherine Hennessey, Docket #2641CR000158
1. Emotional Impact
The assault of November 30, 2025 was not an isolated incident. It was the predictable endpoint of a six-year campaign of documented harassment, false police reports, and institutional abandonment that began in June 2020. I want the court to understand the precise origin point of everything documented in this statement, because the origin point is what makes the subsequent six years so difficult to accept. Everything was avoidable — not at just one point but at four separate points within approximately two minutes on a single afternoon.
On June 6, 2020, I was documenting an unannounced street closure near my own studio. The first episode began when Sonny Walters approached me and tried to get me to stop. I asked her, multiple times, to leave me alone. She persisted, and her persistence is what drew the attention of others nearby. A person who continues engaging after being asked repeatedly to stop is the one initiating harassment, not the one trying to disengage.
The second episode followed directly. Because Walters would not disengage, others took notice and I was encircled against the bridge railing by six or seven people. Katherine Hennessey closed to within inches of my face during this encirclement, fists clenched. I broke free and walked away from the group.
The third episode began when Hennessey and Walters followed me as I walked away, with Alouette Batteau alongside them, recording. After roughly seventy-five feet I turned around because I noticed they were still behind me. This is also when Hennessey flagged down police officers, who did not act.
A photograph taken at this exact moment documents Sonny Walters' daughter standing approximately three feet from the center of the confrontation. I want the court to weigh this specifically: Katherine Hennessey has, in the years since, repeatedly characterized me as a person who targets or torments children. The documented photographic record from the originating day of this entire six-year case shows a child standing three feet from the only adult conduct in this record involving repeated closed distance, clenched fists, and physical blocking of another person's path — her conduct, not mine.
The fourth episode followed when I turned and walked away again. They followed a second time. This is when Hennessey locked elbows with another person to physically block my path and got in my face again, fists clenched — repeating, for the second time that day, conduct she had already engaged in once.
Four separate episodes, in approximately two minutes, each one initiated or continued by someone other than me, each one an opportunity to simply stop that was not taken. It was not one moment of conflict that a video happened to capture. It was a sustained, repeated pattern of pursuit in miniature, compressed into two minutes, that then expanded into six years.
Alouette Batteau filmed this sequence, removed the context of everything that had led to it — including that I had already tried to disengage three separate times before the clip begins — and posted the edited footage publicly. That footage has never been taken down. It was not left up through oversight. It was left up deliberately, because the people who controlled it knew what it was doing to me and chose to let it continue. Every subsequent harm documented in this statement traces back to that decision.
Brook Batteau's documented involvement began later that same month. By late June 2020, recordings exist of him directing a racial slur at me — "Quit your white whining" — and in the same recorded exchange, Katherine Hennessey stated directly: "Yeah, I hate you. Really do. But, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. That's not against the law. I can hate you all I want." Within three weeks of the bridge confrontation, Brook Batteau told me directly that I was now bad for the business in this town. That was false. My presence had been good for Shelburne Falls for thirty years. The campaign that followed destroyed that demonstrable asset along with my professional standing.
I want this court to hold the 2020 hatred declaration alongside a statement Katherine Hennessey made at a social gathering in June 2026, while on bail for the November 30 assault, expressing hostility toward Zachary Livingston — the Commonwealth's sworn neutral witness — and declaring: "When I see something wrong, I just have to do something about it." On the 2020 recording, hatred directed at a named individual contains nothing wrong. A racial slur from her husband, in the same breath, contains nothing wrong. Six years of false police reports, four perjured affidavits, a physical assault, and a recording phone thrown into a river contain nothing wrong. But a neutral witness giving an honest sworn account of what he saw is wrong enough to require action. Katherine Hennessey is not a person who struggles to distinguish right from wrong. She is a person who defines wrong as whatever threatens her and right as whatever serves her. The 2020 recording is the earliest documented statement of that framework. The 2026 statement about Livingston is the most recent. Everything in between is consistent with it.
The 2026 statement about Livingston is not merely a character observation. It warrants evaluation under M.G.L. c. 268 §13B for potential witness intimidation. The statute does not require an explicit threat. It requires willful conduct directed at a witness with intent to harass, retaliate, or interfere with a proceeding. The documented pattern of this family stating intentions and subsequently delivering on them — the Walker letter predicted the assault fourteen months before it occurred; the 2020 comment thread documented a community member writing "I would throw his camera in the water" sixty-six months before Hennessey threw the phone in the river — provides the context that resolves what isolation obscures.
I have since developed a behavioral framework, drawn from my own forensic analysis of this six-year record, that I call the Cold Cruel Sidestep. It extends Jennifer Freyd's DARVO model by identifying a fourth phase: strategic disengagement. After denial, attack on credibility, and reversal of victim and offender roles, the actor disengages through silence, refusal of dialogue, and exclusion from institutional processes — leaving the target to continue documenting alone, while that very persistence is recoded as instability. I mention it here for one reason only: a person does not invent a new vocabulary for psychological harm from a position of stability. That I had to build it at all is itself evidence of the duration and severity of what this campaign produced.
The severity is also documented by an action I took in May 2026: I drafted and published a formal Whistleblower Safety Statement, so that if harm came to me, any investigator would have a documented starting point. It is not rhetorical. It is the considered act of a person who, after six years of institutional failure culminating in physical assault, no longer trusted that the systems responsible for his protection would act before something worse occurred.
I want the court to understand that the institutional abandonment documented in this case predates June 6, 2020. In August 2019, a sitting member of the Bridge of Flowers Committee sent me a threatening email. I reported this to Sergeant Gilmore in 2020. Police took no action. The permission structure was already established before the bridge confrontation ever occurred.
When I first learned of the June 2020 Facebook campaign against me, I experienced immediate and prolonged heart palpitations that lasted approximately three weeks. I lost approximately thirty pounds during that period. I had never experienced cardiac symptoms of that duration before. Later that year I was hospitalized and received an official diagnosis of atrial fibrillation. My physician attributed the condition to the chronic stress of the harassment campaign. The harm was not a single injury but a recurring cycle, each episode compounding the last.
2023: A false Harassment Prevention Order application required me to appear in court on an icy day when the defendant did not appear. I waited two additional weeks for a rescheduled hearing — approximately one month of sustained anxiety for a proceeding that produced nothing. Significant weight loss during this period. Because the court used the wrong address, I then received a criminal harassment summons with only ten days notice. Detective Jenkins spent nearly an hour reviewing video that not only disproved the claims against me but showed the claimant had done the things she accused me of doing. He took no action. Chief Bardwell told me he trusted his officers and referred me elsewhere. A DA victim advocate told me it sounded like the women around town were probably scared of me because of the bad rumors going around. A victim advocate in the DA's office told me that. Two years later I was assaulted on a public sidewalk.
September 2024: Katherine Hennessey wrote to my commercial landlord requesting my eviction, describing an incident at the Mill as harassment by me. The Shelburne Police had already investigated that same incident and found no harassment whatsoever. The police cleared me before Hennessey wrote a single word to my landlord. Her September 6 letter also contained this sentence: "It's really only a matter of time before someone gets hurt." That letter was forwarded to the Shelburne Police Department and received by Detective Jenkins approximately twelve days late. He filed no report, issued no warning, conducted no interview, and took no action of any kind. Fourteen months later, she hurt me.
March 2025: I spent approximately three weeks writing the affidavits for the final Harassment Prevention Order hearing and presented evidence that the defendants were escalating. The hearings were denied by two separate judges on March 17 and March 20. The court told me I was not in danger. Eight months later I was on the pavement outside a brewery with my arms pinned and more than thirty blows landing.
November 22, 2025 — eight days before the assault: Hennessey attended the Bridge of Flowers light projection show wearing a large paper-mache frog mask to avoid recognition. Despite later claiming in her December 1, 2025 affidavit that she stayed quiet, audio documentation establishes she approached me and delivered a taunt: "I hope you get the help you need." I stood on a public sidewalk for fourteen minutes filming the public art show. She called the police on me while I was standing there doing nothing unlawful. The officer tracked me onto private property to deliver a caution based entirely on her unverified phone complaint about constitutionally protected activity. Eight days later she assaulted me.
On December 15, 2025, at the HPO hearing at which Judge Mazanec denied her petition with prejudice, I presented the full fourteen-minute sidewalk video. Hennessey declined to watch it after thirty seconds and asked the judge if she had to; he appeared surprised by the question and said no. I stood for the entire fourteen minutes without asking to sit, in documented atrial fibrillation, having not slept the night before. Judge Mazanec stated on the record that he does not believe Hennessey, that he believes me, and that my conduct on the November 22 sidewalk was protected First Amendment activity that did not exceed its boundaries. That is the fourth judicial finding against her credibility before the same judge.
The March 2026 HPO proceedings compounded every prior failure. After the Greenfield Recorder published a glowing front-page profile of the defendants on the same day the arraignment was announced, I sought a Harassment Prevention Order. On approximately March 1, I appeared before Judge Mazanec for an ex parte hearing. He told me he believed I deserved a hearing and we agreed I would pursue a properly noticed full hearing. I was trying to do it right.
On March 11, 2026, I appeared before Judge Powers. Attorney Elkins claimed her client had only learned of the hearing three days prior. When she requested a two-week continuance, I interrupted: absolutely not two weeks. Judge Powers relented and continued the matter to the following day.
On March 12, 2026, the hearing resumed. Judge Powers instructed me not to rehash prior proceedings or raise matters already in the record. This instruction created a direct denial of due process: the four prior judicial not-credible findings, the vacated HPO, and the active criminal charges against both defendants were all in the record I was forbidden to reference. I presented the 2025 incidents from memory for approximately twenty minutes without notes. Judge Powers then asked whether the defendant was getting arraigned — information explicitly listed in the appendix of the document submitted the day before. The judge had not read the supplemental.
Attorney Elkins then cross-examined me based entirely on fabrications from the defendant's perjured December 1, 2025 affidavit — the same affidavit already shredded at the December 15 hearing. Judge Powers rebuked Attorney Elkins on the record during the hearing for overreaching. During this cross-examination, in open court, the defendant made an obscene gesture directed at me. I identified it on the record. Judge Powers told me that calling it out did not help my case. A bailiff shouted directly into my hearing-impaired ear at one point during the proceeding. The ADA accommodation request I had submitted was not honored. The hearing triggered a six-day atrial fibrillation episode that did not resolve until March 17, 2026.
On October 19, 2025 — six weeks before the assault — a State Police officer was so concerned about my cardiac state during a testimony session that he insisted on calling EMS over my objection. The LIFEPAK 15 cardiac monitor recorded my heart rate fluctuating between 130 and 230 beats per minute. That was my baseline going into November 30.
I have since identified symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder. I cannot enter certain parts of Shelburne Falls — both bridges, my own public artwork, the street where my studio is located — without experiencing acute anxiety. I have left a light on in my apartment continuously for six years out of fear, a direct reversal of a lifelong commitment to energy conservation that I held in both my work and private life. I did not used to lock my door. I now lock it every time I leave.
The most difficult aspect of this experience to articulate is what I call the feedback loop of false pariah-dom. Every attempt I made to correct the record was processed by the community and institutions around me as evidence of instability rather than evidence of harm. My legitimate efforts to seek accountability were recoded as obsession. The most persistent damage is that I can no longer reliably distinguish people who oppose me from everyone else. That loss of basic social legibility does not resolve when proceedings end.
My relationship with my partner has been severely damaged by this ordeal. My father died during this period. My mother died during this period. I have had no institutional support — not from the police, not from the select board, not from the courts prior to this prosecution.
The re-traumatization continues to the present. Alouette Batteau posted a video titled "John Sendelbach Part Two" naming me explicitly. Her March 23, 2026 Instagram post — "I never wished so much to k1ll a man with my bare hands," captioned "this one goes out to my stalker" — produced an acute cardiac episode when combined with Chief Bardwell's written response dismissing it as part of a musical performance that did not clearly establish the statements were directed toward me. The word stalker is the specific and exclusive label this family has applied to me in every sworn affidavit, HPO petition, police report, and piece of live court testimony across six years.
The April 7, 2026 arraignment produced additional documented intimidation — the defendant performing the same obscene gesture multiple times across the courtroom aisle, switching hands, and repeating it four to five additional times as she was led toward the hallway. This occurred under active courtroom video surveillance while bail conditions were being set.
On May 20, 2026, I missed a pre-trial conference because the court sent the required form to the wrong address. The matter was continued to June 30, 2026. On June 12, 2026, I observed a vehicle I believe belongs to Brook Batteau drive past my rented property within what I understand to be the stay-away distance while I had a witness present. I reported this to the District Attorney's office the same day. As of the date of this statement, I have not received confirmation that the camera footage I requested be preserved has been secured.
2. Physical Impact
On November 30, 2025 I sustained more than thirty blows to the head and face across two separate assault sequences. Brook Batteau shoved me hard with both hands, knocking me backward off the curb onto my back in the street. My phone fell to the pavement, screen lit, still recording. He then jumped me from behind and punched my head and back a dozen or more times while I was on the ground.
I got up and away from him. Katherine Hennessey then shoved and punched me. When I turned away from the blows, an unidentified male taller than my own six-foot-one grabbed both my elbows from behind and pinned my arms, allowing Hennessey to punch my head and face freely, knocking my glasses askew. I did not strike back. I screamed for help. Hennessey then seized my still-recording phone and threw it into the Deerfield River; I watched the lit screen arc into the water from approximately thirty feet away. As I moved back toward the brewery for witnesses, she followed and continued punching and kicking at my legs to trip me — the second of the two Assault and Battery counts before this court. The male who pinned my arms is known to Zachary Livingston and has not been charged.
Before Brook Batteau charged out of the brewery, a man I had never met in my life exited first, screaming profanities at me from approximately one foot away. I later identified him to Sergeant Gilmore by name — Tom Del Negro, a musical collaborator of Alouette Batteau — and pointed him out through the brewery window on scene that night. Gilmore's response: "Don't point at him." Del Negro does not appear in the official report by name. He appears as "a male" in a single clause, never interviewed, never identified. The man who initiated the assault was identified by the victim to the responding officer, discouraged from being identified, and omitted from the official record.
After the assault I had no phone. When I tried to re-enter Floodwater to access witnesses I was physically blocked at the door — grabbed from behind and pulled back by multiple people. I drove directly to the Massachusetts State Police barracks on Route 2, two miles away. State Police were already in radio contact with Shelburne and agreed that someone would meet me at the Shelburne station. The station was dark when I arrived. Nobody was there. I knocked on the rear cruiser-bay door. Nothing. I walked around to the front lobby and knocked. Nothing. I stood outside for approximately fifteen minutes — no phone, no way to call anyone, having just been beaten, not knowing if more was coming. One cruiser sat in the parking area with the engine running. I had to physically position a streetlight behind the vehicle to backlight the tinted glass enough to confirm no one was inside. Gilmore had left his cruiser running and unattended while the assault victim he had agreed to meet waited outside a dark building. When he finally came out, he interviewed me and then drove to the defendants' residence to interview them in their living room.
The following morning, Gilmore called to tell me papers had arrived from the court fax. He said he was surprised — he had expected it to be my HPO petition, not Hennessey's. That statement inadvertently documented what his report does not say directly: he had coached Hennessey and Batteau to seek HPOs against me during the living room interview the night before. He knew a filing was coming from that direction. His surprise was only about which party had moved first. He had advised the assault defendants to seek civil protection orders against the assault victim before completing his criminal investigation, and his own call the next morning confirmed it.
I was hospitalized in late 2020 when my atrial fibrillation was first diagnosed. What was previously episodic has, as of the date of this statement, become persistent and unremitting. As of June 2026, I have been in continuous atrial fibrillation for months. Climbing a single flight of stairs produces the exertion sensation of five flights. Bending to tie my shoes and standing upright produces dizziness. I am sixty years old and experiencing the cumulative cardiac consequence of six years of documented, institutionally-enabled stress.
3. Financial Impact
One iPhone SE was destroyed in the assault; replacement cost is documented by receipt in the court file. I am a metalworker, sculptor, and landscape designer with thirty years of permanent public installations across western Massachusetts. A Greenfield Recorder Facebook post summarizing the petition to remove my work has remained indexed on the first page of Google search results for my name for six years, despite approximately twelve documented attempts to correct or remove it. I cannot advertise effectively and have sustained my income through an unrelated eBay resale operation for years.
A metalworker cannot practice without a welding shop. I lost my nine-year studio at 44 State Street, relocated twice more under pressure connected to the same defendants, and have been unable to secure a welding-capable space since — three studios in five years, one campaign. In 2023 I negotiated an outdoor welding arrangement with my landlord at the Mill, spent more than a week building a 300-square-foot brick patio and installing gates as part of a trade, and bought a generator and compressor. Katherine Hennessey's defamatory letters to that landlord in September 2024 — containing false factual claims about an incident the police had already investigated and cleared me of — collapsed the arrangement before it began. The generator remains unboxed. The forced departure from 44 State Street also required selling approximately eighty percent of my professional inventory at scrap value. The Culinary Institute of America commission pipeline — nine proposed works at values of $50,000 to $100,000 each — was severed by the events of summer 2020 and has not recovered.
4. Sentence Recommendation
I am asking this court to impose a custodial sentence on Katherine Hennessey, with a permanent no-contact and stay-away order as a condition of any sentence imposed.
The documented trajectory is neither static nor ambiguous. Social media ideation of violence in 2020 became a written prediction in September 2024 that it was only a matter of time before someone got hurt — a prediction delivered to police, who took no action. That prediction became the physical assault of November 2025. The assault was followed — while both defendants were on bail and criminal charges were pending — by their daughter's public post wishing to kill the target with bare hands. At every step, the absence of meaningful consequence preceded the next escalation.
This court should understand that the absence of consequence is not incidental to the escalation. It is the explanation for it. Katherine Hennessey has operated for six years inside a system that confirmed, at every point, that her conduct would not cost her anything. The police received her complaints and did not call the other party. The courts found her not credible four times and referred her for nothing. The select board did not answer the other party's mail. The press ran her story without contacting the subject. Zero consequences. For six years. She did not escalate to physical assault despite those confirmations. She escalated because of them. The entitlement that produced the assault on November 30 is not a personality trait she arrived with. It is a personality trait the institutions of this community taught her through six years of confirmed impunity.
Non-custodial responses have been tested for six years and have produced no deterrence; every resolution I offered was received as weakness and answered with escalation. A non-custodial sentence will be received the same way — as the seventh institutional confirmation that her conduct carries no cost. The sentence imposed here is the first real structural constraint this pattern has encountered, and it should reflect the full trajectory, not only its most recent expression.
The charges before the court represent the floor of the documented record, not its ceiling. The evening of November 30, 2025 itself contains uncharged conduct. Tom Del Negro — a musical collaborator of the defendants' daughter Alouette Batteau — exited Floodwater Brewing before Brook Batteau charged and verbally assaulted me for several minutes on the public sidewalk. He had zero prior contact with me. His immediate hostile engagement could only have resulted from prior poisoning of my reputation inside the brewery. I identified Del Negro to Sergeant Gilmore by pointing him out through the window. Gilmore's response was to tell me not to point at him. Del Negro is nearly absent from Gilmore's report despite being the initial aggressor of the evening.
The morning of November 30, 2025 contains uncharged criminal conduct as well. Hennessey drove onto my rented property without invitation or legitimate purpose, pulled directly to my parked vehicle past the store entrance where her stated errand would have ended, gave me the middle finger twice, mouthed profanity at me, and drove away. I called police within twenty minutes. An officer responded, took my statement, and did nothing. Sergeant Gilmore subsequently reviewed that officer's bodycam footage and also did nothing. No charge was filed for the morning trespass despite two separate officers having direct knowledge of it within hours of the event.
Katherine Hennessey filed a documented pattern of false police reports against me between 2020 and 2025. Eight were compiled into a single criminal harassment show-cause that produced a No Probable Cause finding on June 6, 2023. Those eight are documented. They are not the complete picture. In August 2025 I submitted a formal public records request to the Shelburne Falls Police Department specifically to obtain the full record of complaints filed against me. As of the date of this statement that request has produced not a single document.
Katherine Hennessey swore falsely before courts on at least four separate occasions across five years. A sitting judge witnessed her perjury in real time during the 2021 Sonny Walters hearing. The same judge denied her March 2023 HPO after finding her claims contradicted by the audio record. The same judge denied her December 1, 2025 HPO with prejudice after reviewing video that directly contradicted every material claim in her affidavit. A fourth proceeding produced the same finding. Three documented instances of witnessed perjury before the same judge across four years. Not once was she referred for perjury prosecution. The assault is the foreseeable consequence of a system that imposed no cost on repeated perjury by the same person before the same court.
The institutional failure is documented and ongoing. I went to the police. I went to the courts. I went to the DA's office. I went directly to the Chief of Police in person. I submitted formal records requests. I appeared at five separate court hearings seeking protection from escalating conduct. At each step I was told there was not enough, that I was not in danger, that I should try somewhere else: the DA said it was the chief's job; the chief said he could not charge false police reports — factually incorrect under Massachusetts law, captured on video; the chief then sent me to an office that does not handle matters of this kind. The circle was complete. No one acted. The assault occurred weeks later.
When I subsequently reported Alouette Batteau's March 23, 2026 public Instagram post, Chief Bardwell responded in writing that it appeared to be part of a musical performance that did not clearly establish the statements were directed toward me. The word stalker is the specific and exclusive label this family has applied to me in every sworn affidavit, HPO petition, police report, and piece of live court testimony across six years.
The post-arraignment record confirms that non-custodial responses do not deter this pattern. At the April 7, 2026 arraignment itself, while bail conditions were being set, Hennessey performed sustained deliberate obscene gestures across the courtroom aisle toward me while making direct eye contact, switched hands and repeated the gesture, and as she was led toward the hallway turned back and performed it four to five additional times consecutively. This occurred under active courtroom video surveillance. The bail conditions imposed that day did not deter that conduct, did not deter the reported June 2026 hostility toward the Commonwealth's neutral witness, and did not deter the June 12, 2026 vehicle approach within the stay-away distance of my property. The pattern of conduct continuing under court supervision is the clearest available evidence of what a non-custodial sentence will produce.
Regarding Brook Batteau: his role, while criminal, was a single physical act without the multi-year premeditation that characterizes the Hennessey record. I leave his sentence to the court's discretion.
The Black Stones of Africa remain in the pavement on the Bridge of Flowers. I remain in this community. I am asking this court to make that mean something.
John F. Sendelbach
Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
June 2026
COMMENT ARCHIVE — FULL QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
All Platforms, June 6 / June 29 / Recorder June 11, 2020
TOTAL SCOPE
210 unique commenters across three platforms and three dates. The data below covers all of them ranked by total word output, with key notes where relevant.
TOP TIER — Primary Voices (500+ words total)
SECOND TIER — Significant Contributors (200–499 words)
| # | Commenter | Dates Active | Total Comments | Total Words | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | Jasper Forest | June 6 (3), June 29 (13) | 16 | 372 | Primary defense voice |
| 8 | Ami-Thystle Braverman | June 29 | 9 | 295 | Explicit confrontation language |
| 9 | Reba R. Rasbury | June 6 | 4 | 274 | Internal critique of campaign |
| 10 | Liz Boltz | June 6 | 8 | 168 | Boycott coordination |
| 11 | Grace Hannah | June 29 | 2 | 206 | Detailed accusatory narrative |
| 12 | Sonseniora Walters | June 6 (4), June 29 (6) | 10 | 326 | Bridge coordination |
| 13 | Alouette Batteau | June 6 (19), June 29 (5) | 24 | 345 | Video poster, BOFC contact |
| 14 | Becky Poirier | Recorder | 8 | 209 | Mixed — free speech defense |
| 15 | Amanda Kingsley | June 6 (6), June 29 (2) | 8 | 253 | Boycott list organizer |
| 16 | Rhonda Anderson | June 6 | 6 | 158 | False restraining order claim |
| 17 | Stephen Da Sung Wallace | June 6 (3), June 29 (1) | 4 | 183 | — |
| 18 | Kevin Kennedy | Recorder | 2 | 162 | Free speech defense |
| 19 | Robin Sidel | June 6 (6), June 29 (2) | 8 | 166 | — |
THIRD TIER — Notable Single-Thread Contributors (100–199 words)
| Commenter | Date | Comments | Words | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sionan Kinney | Recorder | 15 | 157 | Hostile |
| Starr Rivard | Recorder | 5 | 147 | Mixed |
| Jamie Sorrels Havard | June 6 | 3 | 146 | Hostile |
| Milton Rock | Recorder | 2 | 131 | Free speech defense |
| Jade Mortimer | June 6 | 2 | 124 | Hostile |
| Mariana Luz | June 6 | 4 | 119 | Mixed |
| Shaun Michaelz | Recorder | 7 | 106 | Wanted apology |
| Frank Gregory | Recorder | 1 | 103 | Partial defense |
| Jason Lively | June 6 | 3 | 92 | Hostile |
| Mark Buck | June 6 | 3 | 87 | Called for throwing him off the bridge |
| Leah Culleny | June 6 | 1 | 76 | Petition strategy advice |
| Mark Benjamin | June 6 | 2 | 74 | Had 3-hour civil conversation with subject |
| Jeanna Byrd | June 6 | 4 | 74 | Hostile |
| Kate Hunter | June 6 | 6 | 69 | Hostile |
| Bonnie Heiligmann | June 6 | 2 | 66 | Mixed |
| Lea Appel | Recorder | 2 | 81 | Anti-censorship defense |
| Sharon A. Roth | Recorder | 2 | 81 | Anti-censorship defense |
FOURTH TIER — Shorter Contributions (40–99 words)
| Commenter | Date | Comments | Words | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daniel A Brown | June 6 | 1 | 63 | Anti-censorship |
| Gia E. Fogg | June 6 | 2 | 62 | Hostile |
| Mikele Deziell | Recorder | 2 | 61 | — |
| Kelly Mignault | June 6 | 4 | 59 | Mask law defense |
| Heather Loomis | June 6 | 3 | 58 | Hostile |
| Julia Moon Beam | June 6 | 3 | 57 | Published SFBA contact info; disputed subject's credit for fountain |
| Piyali Summer | June 6 | 3 | 56 | Wanted to hear him out |
| Jacinta Catherine | June 6 | 2 | 56 | Called for removing Greenfield fish sculpture too |
| Reily Mumpton | June 6 | 1 | 55 | Hostile |
| Samantha Wondoloski | Recorder | 1 | 50 | Replace-not-remove |
| Sarah Chase | June 6 (2), Recorder (3) | 5 | 61 | Hostile |
| Adrian Feliciano | June 6 | 1 | 51 | Hostile |
| Peter Hayes | June 6 | 1 | 49 | Hostile |
| Leslie Grinnell | June 6 | 1 | 48 | Called for removing art and cleaning up "junkyard" |
| Maggie Tirrell | June 29 | 1 | 46 | Identified Maduro reference as Venezuela reference |
| Tones Hall | June 29 | 1 | 43 | Hostile |
| Avery Miraglia | June 6 | 1 | 43 | — |
| Jeanna Byrd (total) | June 6 | 4 | 74 | listed above |
| Emmy Sheldon | Recorder | 1 | 36 | Anti-removal |
| Don McAulay | June 29 | 1 | 35 | Hostile |
| Mary Boyle | June 6 | 3 | 48 | Mixed |
| Emily F Jones | June 6 | 3 | 45 | Hostile |
| Victoria Rolon | June 6 | 3 | 45 | "Throw his camera in the water" — documented |
| Joslyn Rita | June 6 | 1 | 45 | — |
| Lorraine X Scheppler | June 6 | 3 | 37 | — |
| Brianah Edwards | June 6 | 1 | 38 | — |
| Anjali Rose | June 6 | 1 | 38 | — |
| Jen LaValley Hurley | June 6 | 1 | 38 | — |
| Nick Doneilo | Recorder | 3 | 35 | — |
| John Wayne | June 6 | 1 | 34 | Attacked fish sculpture re: opioid crisis |
| Inge Altena Breor | June 6 | 1 | 34 | — |
| Skii Aryanna Riettie | June 6 | 1 | 34 | — |
| Sasha Rasid | June 6 | 1 | 34 | — |
| Tracy Prentiss | Recorder | 1 | 29 | Anti-censorship |
| Alicia Blaze | Recorder | 1 | 29 | Anti-censorship |
| Rose Hall | Recorder | 1 | 28 | — |
| Janice Sorensen | June 6 | 1 | 26 | "When Jewish people were his target of choice" — defamatory |
| Michaela Lindsey | June 6 | 1 | 25 | — |
| Mahalia Dean | June 6 | 1 | 24 | — |
| Avery Miraglia | June 6 | 1 | 24 | — |
| Evan H Gregg | June 6 | 1 | 23 | Targeted grant funding |
| Benjamin Miner | June 6 | 1 | 22 | — |
| Mary Byrne | June 6 | 1 | 22 | — |
| Jacob Hunter | June 6 | 3 | 21 | "Not going in there again" |
| Steven Aronstein | June 6 | 1 | 21 | — |
| Jay Keeney | June 6 | 1 | 21 | — |
| Matthew Norris | June 6 | 1 | 31 | KKK claim |
| Chad Flasinski | June 6 | 2 | 31 | Listed commissions |
| Grace Coller | June 6 | 2 | 32 | — |
FIFTH TIER — Brief Comments (under 20 words)
The following commenters each left 1–2 comments totaling under 20 words. Listed with any notable content.
| Commenter | Date | Words | Notable Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| Victoria Ferreira Sardinha | June 6 | 27 | "Antifa means anti-fascist" |
| Susan Shauger | June 6 | 27 | — |
| Stephanie Ovak | Recorder | 26 | — |
| Rena Frank | June 6 | 16 | Boosted petition |
| Jessica Lazuka | June 6 | 15 | "Fragile masculinity" |
| Lora Dobbins | June 6 | 15 | — |
| Liz O'Neall Hennessey | Petition | 15 | — |
| Eileen Stas | June 6 | 14 | — |
| Chris Bellany | Recorder | 14 | — |
| Chris Go | June 6 | 14 | — |
| Lydia Donahue | June 6 | 13 | Asked for business name |
| Reginald Lynn Russaw | June 6 | 12 | — |
| Kelsey Miraglia | June 6 | 12 | Published SFBA contact |
| Laura Iveson | June 6 | 12 | — |
| Joanne Flagg | June 6 | 12 | — |
| Leah Drozd Duquette | Recorder | 12 | — |
| Victoria A Palmer | Petition | 12 | — |
| Brendan Conroy | Petition | 12 | — |
| Nicholas VanAken | Petition | 12 | — |
| Jules Jones | Recorder | 11 | — |
| Ruben Garcia | Recorder | 11 | — |
| The Greenfield Recorder | Recorder | 11 | Posted updated story link |
| Merricka Breuer | Recorder | 11 | — |
| conor dowling | Petition | 11 | — |
| Katherine Cormier | Petition | 11 | — |
| Kim Zabek | June 6 | 10 | Identified fish sculpture |
| Sharin Alpert | June 6 | 10 | — |
| Gabe Rioux | June 6 | 10 | — |
| Mary Kelleher | Recorder | 10 | — |
| Matt Grader | Recorder | 10 | — |
| Zara Bodē | June 6 | 9 | "Stop being polite to that heartless bag of flesh" |
| Jacqueline Hunt | June 6 | 9 | — |
| Malcolm Smith | June 6 + 29 | 9 | — |
| Maddy Leue | Recorder | 9 | — |
| Meghan Hale | June 6 | 8 | — |
| Penny Ricketts | June 6 | 8 | — |
| Kaylee Kelleher | June 29 | 8 | — |
| Dylan Renfrew | June 6 | 7 | — |
| Ashley MWord | June 6 | 7 | — |
| Joey Kotright | June 6 | 7 | — |
| Jennie Crocker | Recorder | 6 | — |
| June Millington | June 6 | 5 | — |
| Jan Andrew Kuznik | June 6 | 5 | — |
| Kathleen King | June 6 | 5 | — |
| Josh Thorpe | June 6 | 5 | — |
| Ada Karahasanovic | June 6 | 5 | — |
| Cami Blüh-Derricotte | June 6 | 5 | — |
| Johnson Fontainebleau | June 6 | 5 | "Throw him off the bridge" |
| James Faulkner | June 6 | 5 | — |
| Sophie Jacobson-Carroll | June 29 | 5 | — |
| Steve Burns | Recorder | 5 | — |
| Rhi Wolfram | Petition | 5 | — |
| Mary Patierno | June 6 | 4 | — |
| Jennilyn Rosa | June 6 | 4 | — |
| Imo Nse Imeh | June 6 | 4 | — |
| Tim Piela | June 6 | 4 | — |
| Garrick Perry | June 6 | 4 | — |
| Dttm Drew | June 29 | 4 | — |
| Renna Earp | Recorder | 4 | — |
| Adele Corcoran | Recorder | 4 | — |
| Rose Carragher | Petition | 4 | — |
| Marissa Dean | Petition | 4 | — |
| Britni Bellamy | Petition | 4 | — |
| Abigail Goldner Morris | June 6 | 3 | — |
| Leo Franceschi | June 6 | 3 | — |
| Synphany Bates Zale | June 6 | 3 | "Boycott his business" |
| Mike Ski | June 6 | 3 | Asked for name |
| Lindsay Sheperd | June 6 | 3 | — |
| Gary Pratt | Recorder | 3 | — |
| Wendy Dustin Kingsley | Recorder | 3 | — |
| MaryAnn Socquet | Recorder | 3 | — |
| Rachel Davis Sautter | Recorder | 3 | "Bye bye bench" |
| Amanda Ambrose | Petition | 3 | — |
| Ernie Royer | Petition | 3 | — |
| Nataly Gomez | Petition | 3 | — |
| Bre King | June 6 | 2 | — |
| Alexander Jackson | June 6 | 2 | — |
| Bob Davidson | June 6 | 2 | — |
| Jaice Barton | Petition | 2 | — |
| Christine Tubbs | June 6 | 1 | "Asshat" |
| Heather E. Burns | June 6 | 1 | "Shame" |
PLATFORM BREAKDOWN
Facebook — Alouette Batteau's post (June 6): The origin thread. Approximately 120 commenters. Boycott coordination, business identification, petition creation, and the "throw his camera in the water" comment all originate here.
Facebook — June 29 follow-up thread: Approximately 25 commenters. Jasper Forest's primary defense comments appear here. Katie Hennessey's refusal to engage. Ami-Thystle Braverman's confrontation language.
Greenfield Recorder website (June 11): Approximately 45 commenters. Richard Adams's due process defense. Steve William Lindsey calling for apology. Bianca Rose defending the petition. The Recorder posting the updated story confirming petition removal.
THREE NUMBERS THAT MATTER
210 — Total unique commenters across all three platforms and dates.
0 — Commenters who referenced the Sojourner Truth plaques, the Black Stones of Africa, the Mohammad Yaseen bench, or any other element of the subject's documented 30-year anti-racist record before acting.
1 — The number of people (Bianca Rose, the petition creator) who spoke with the subject after the fact, found him "very kind and understanding," and continued the petition anyway.
FLAGGED COMMENTS FOR THE RECORD
These are the specific comments with legal or evidentiary significance, pulled from the full dataset:
Victoria Rolon, June 6: "I would throw his camera in the water" — documented 66 months before the November 30, 2025 phone destruction.
Johnson Fontainebleau, June 6: "Throw him off the bridge" — public death threat, documented.
Mark Buck, June 6: "I would of thrown him over the bridge" — additional death threat variant, documented.
Hank Elliott, June 6: "If this asshole wants to meet, I'd gladly teach him a lesson for you" — explicit threat, documented.
Janice Sorensen, June 6: "I unfriended him years ago when Jewish people were his target of choice" — defamatory statement published to the full thread audience. No supporting evidence. Subject of subsequent Conway Street confrontation June 14, 2023.
Rhonda Anderson, June 6: "There are restraining orders against him for harassing women, including me" — false claim published to approximately 22,000 readers. Edited twice in 24 hours. No restraining orders existed at any point.
Alouette Batteau, June 6: "I am in contact with the Bridge of Flowers Committee brainstorming other ways to combat racism in the community" — documents simultaneous contact between the Facebook campaign and the institutional process that would later erase the subject's professional legacy.
Julia Moon Beam, June 6: "He actually did not do much of that fountain sculpture, 2 local stone masons did — but was credited for it!!" — false claim about authorship of the Pothole Fountain, published in the same thread where the subject was being designated for removal from the bridge.
Evan H Gregg, June 6: "This guy has received so much tax payer money for his many public sculptures. Don't forget this next time grants are divvied out." — explicit call to target grant funding.
Maggie Tirrell, June 29: "it's wild and i don't really get it either but i think he's talking about nicholas maduro who is the socialist president of venezuela" — this is the only comment in the entire archive that engages with the subject's Maduro reference rather than dismissing it. It identifies the reference accurately and dismisses it as "conservative" talking points, without examining the documented Tometi-Maduro association.