Wednesday, May 27, 2026

Hennessey last weekend: "I Just Have to Do Something About It"

THE PATTERN THAT WILL NOT STOP
On Katherine Hennessey, Zachary Livingston, and What “I Just Have to Do Something About It” Means Six Months Into Bail
By John F. Sendelbach · May 2026

“When I see something wrong, I just have to do something about it.”
That was the line Katherine Hennessey was heard saying at a gathering approximately five days ago. Five words that illuminate a long-running behavioral pattern.
A credible firsthand source who was present reports that Hennessey was expressing open anger at Zachary Livingston — the man whose sworn statement is now the prosecution’s cleanest independent evidence in Commonwealth v. Hennessey (2641CR000158) and Commonwealth v. Batteau (2641CR000159). She was badmouthing the Commonwealth’s star witness six months after her arraignment.
She was also reportedly repeating the same category of unverified medical claims she has used before — publicly accusing a performer of having COVID-19. Different target, same mechanism.
That sentence is devastating.
The woman currently on bail for a violent assault still believes she is the final authority on what constitutes “wrong” in the world and still feels compelled to act as enforcer. Two months after being placed under court supervision, she continues trash-talking the key neutral witness against her and broadcasting unverified claims about private individuals.
This is not abstract. Under Massachusetts law (M.G.L. c. 268 §13B), it is a crime to willfully harass or intimidate a witness, or to retaliate against someone for their participation in a criminal proceeding. Zachary Livingston gave a sworn statement documenting Brook Batteau’s voluntary admission right after the assault. Ongoing public badmouthing of that witness, combined with her stated belief that she “just has to do something about it” when she sees something wrong, raises serious concerns under the statute — especially when viewed against her prior written statement that “it’s only a matter of time before someone gets hurt.”The law does not require an explicit threat — only a documented pattern in context. Six years of receipts provide that context in abundance.
The pattern of disrespect for the court is equally clear. There have now been five Harassment Prevention Order petitions filed between us — Hennessey filed two against me (March 2023 and December 2025, the latter denied with prejudice by Judge Mazanec after he found her not credible), and I filed three against her (two in March 2025 and one in March 2026). All five were denied. No protection orders were granted to either side until April 7, 2026, when the court imposed stay-away and no-contact conditions as part of the defendants’ bail. During my March 12, 2026 hearing, Hennessey openly pushed her glasses up with her middle finger in a deliberate gesture while in my line of sight. At the April 7 arraignment, she repeated the same middle-finger “glasses push” multiple times in the gallery and then five or six more times (switching hands) as she walked out of the courtroom with Attorney Elkins.
On November 30, 2025, outside Floodwater, she and Brook Batteau unleashed a barrage of hits on me on the public sidewalk. A third individual pinned my elbows from behind. Hennessey then picked up my still-recording iPhone, walked seventy-five feet to the Deerfield River, and threw it in while the screen was still lit. I watched the glow arc into the water. Zachary Livingston — a neutral party — handed me my shoe and asked Batteau why he had pushed me. Batteau replied: “You don’t understand, John has been after my family for five years.” Livingston answered: “But you still shouldn’t have pushed him.” That exchange is now in a sworn statement dated December 9, 2025.
Both defendants were arraigned April 7, 2026. Both remain under court-ordered stay-away and no-contact conditions. I am the person those orders require them to stay away from.I cannot independently verify every detail of the recent account, but the source was present and credible, and the behavior is entirely consistent with the documented six-year record: the eight collapsed police reports (never once interviewing or notifying me), the frog mask worn eight days before the assault, the false affidavit, the phone in the river, the death-threat lyric posted while her parents were on bail, and the repeated courtroom gestures.
The pattern does not change. Only the setting does.
If this account is accurate — and the source’s credibility and consistency with the record give me no reason to doubt it — then the Northwestern District Attorney’s office and Shelburne Police now have clear notice of potential witness intimidation under M.G.L. c. 268 §13B and a bail violation that warrants immediate review.
I have documented atrial fibrillation attributed to the sustained stress of this pattern. The American Heart Association is clear: repeated episodes shorten life expectancy by five to ten years. The machine is still running.
She’s still out there.
She’s still telling people what she sees as wrong.
She still “just has to do something about it.”
The phone is still in the river.
The court case is still active.
And the pattern is still on the record.

John F. Sendelbach is a metalworker, sculptor, and landscape designer based in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. The complete documented archive is at johnsendelbach.com. No login. No fee.

~~~~~
John F. Sendelbach
Shelburne Falls, MA
May 26, 2026
 
Northwestern District Attorney's Office
Attn: ADA assigned to Commonwealth v. Hennessey (2641CR000158)
and Commonwealth v. Batteau (2641CR000159)
 
CC: Chief Gregory Bardwell, Shelburne Police Department
CC: Attorney Marissa Elkins, counsel for Katherine Hennessey
 
RE: Ongoing Conduct by Katherine Hennessey and Alouette Batteau While
Under Bail Conditions — Pattern of Contempt Toward the Court, Hostility
Toward Key Commonwealth Witness Zachary Livingston, and Directed Violent
Communication
 
 
Dear District Attorney's Office,
 
I am writing to formally notify your office of a pattern of conduct by
Katherine Hennessey and Alouette Batteau that I believe warrants review
for potential violations of bail conditions, witness intimidation under
M.G.L. c. 268 §13B, and directed threatening communication. I am the
victim and complaining witness in both captioned cases. Each item below
is supported by documented evidence, sworn testimony, or court video
that I respectfully request your office preserve and review.
 
 
I. WITNESS INTIMIDATION — ZACHARY LIVINGSTON
 
Zachary Livingston, co-owner of Floodwater Brewing, provided a sworn
statement to Sergeant Gilmore on December 9, 2025, documenting Brook
Batteau's voluntary admission immediately after the November 30, 2025
assault. His exact words to Livingston: "You don't understand, John has
been after my family for five years." Livingston's reply: "But you still
shouldn't have pushed him." That statement is among the Commonwealth's
strongest independent evidence in both cases.
 
A credible firsthand source who was present at a social gathering
approximately five days ago reports that Katherine Hennessey was
expressing open anger at Zachary Livingston, badmouthing the
Commonwealth's star witness. She was heard to say: "When I see something
wrong, I just have to do something about it."
 
That statement requires context. On September 6, 2024, Hennessey wrote
to my commercial landlord: "It's really only a matter of time before
someone gets hurt." Detective Jenkins received that letter and took no
action. Fourteen months later, she hurt me — on a public sidewalk,
in front of witnesses, with thirty-plus blows, followed by the seizure
and destruction of my recording device. Her prior written prediction
was delivered on schedule.
 
"When I see something wrong, I just have to do something about it" is
the same grammatical structure: a behavioral disposition stated as
present-tense fact, directed at a current target — in this instance,
the man whose sworn testimony is sitting in the Commonwealth's file.
Given her documented history of delivering on exactly this category of
statement, her expressed anger at Livingston in active social circles
connected to this case warrants immediate evaluation under M.G.L. c.
268 §13B. The statute does not require an explicit threat. It requires
willful conduct directed at a witness with the intent to harass,
retaliate, or interfere with a proceeding. The pattern in evidence
satisfies that standard.
 
It should also be noted that Katherine Hennessey's moral authority to
determine what is "wrong" is the precise question before this court.
She is on bail for physically assaulting someone she determined was
wrong. Three separate judicial proceedings before the same judge
produced findings of not-credible testimony against her. Her own sworn
affidavit following the November 30 assault contained eleven material
false statements directly contradicted by Livingston's testimony,
video evidence, and physical evidence. The woman who believes she "just
has to do something about it when I see something wrong" has now
demonstrated, in documented and adjudicated detail, that she is not
a reliable judge of what is wrong.
 
 
II. COURTROOM INTIMIDATION — DOCUMENTED GESTURES
 
A. March 12, 2026 — HPO Hearing Before Judge Powers
 
During the March 12, 2026 HPO hearing before Judge Powers, while
Attorney Elkins was examining me as the respondent and I was under oath,
Katherine Hennessey was seated directly behind Attorney Elkins and
within my clear line of sight. With Elkins's back turned, she performed
an obscene gesture — presenting her middle finger toward me under the
guise of pushing her glasses up her face.
 
I reported this in real time, on the record, under oath: "She just gave
me the middle finger." I was not mistaken. I did not mischaracterize
what I saw. I reported a direct observation while under oath, in open
court, immediately as it occurred. Judge Powers responded that calling
it out was not helping my case. That exchange is on the court transcript
and it confirms that the event was reported contemporaneously.
 
Your office has previously been provided with Hennessey's two
irreconcilable explanations for this gesture: on the night of November
30, 2025, she told Sergeant Gilmore she gives people the finger
frequently and could not recall whether she had done so that morning;
at the December 15, 2025 HPO hearing before Judge Mazanec, she testified
that she habitually pushes her glasses up with her middle finger and
people misinterpret it as an obscene gesture. These accounts cannot
both be true. The first is intentional. The second is involuntary.
She chose the version most useful for each specific audience. I ask
that the March 12 court transcript be reviewed in light of both prior
accounts.
 
B. April 7, 2026 — Criminal Arraignment
 
At the April 7, 2026 criminal arraignment — the proceeding at which
both defendants formally entered their pleas and the court imposed
stay-away and no-contact conditions — Katherine Hennessey performed
the same gesture toward me multiple times from across the aisle, while
making sustained direct eye contact. She then switched hands and
repeated it. As Attorney Elkins arrived and led her toward the hallway,
she turned back and performed the gesture four to five additional times
consecutively while looking directly at me.
 
This occurred in a courtroom almost certainly under active video
surveillance. I respectfully request that the court video from the
April 7, 2026 arraignment be preserved and reviewed immediately before
any routine overwrite cycle. The conduct is documented and unambiguous.
 
A defendant who performs sustained, deliberate contemptuous gestures
at the complaining witness on the day her bail conditions are being
set — in the courtroom where those conditions are imposed — has
demonstrated that the court's authority is not a constraint she
intends to respect.
 
 
III. ALOUETTE BATTEAU — DIRECTED VIOLENT COMMUNICATION
 
On March 23, 2026 — eleven days after the March 12 HPO hearing and
fifteen days before the April 7 criminal arraignment — Alouette Batteau
posted the following to her public Instagram account, @alouettebatteau:
 
Caption: "this one goes out to my stalker! teehee wish i was joking"
Lyric overlay: "I never wished so much to k1ll a man with my bare hands"
Comment from @songsbysarika, left unremoved: "hope they d!e!!!!!"
(three likes)
 
"Stalker" is not a generic word in this record. It is the specific and
exclusive label applied to me in every sworn affidavit, HPO petition,
police report, and piece of live court testimony filed by this family
across six years of proceedings. Given that documented pattern, the
target of this post is not ambiguous. The qualifier "wish i was joking"
is not a disavowal — it is an explicit acknowledgment that the violent
wish is real while the framing as performance provides social insulation
from accountability. The commenter @songsbysarika is a named professional
collaborator tagged two lines above in the same post for a Massachusetts
performance date, making her connection to this household direct and
current.
 
This post was made while Alouette Batteau's parents were on bail for
the November 30 assault against me, by the daughter who filmed and
distributed the original defamatory video in June 2020, during active
criminal proceedings in which I am the complaining witness.
 
The applicable standard under M.G.L. c. 268 §13B and under
Counterman v. Colorado (2023) requires evaluation of whether a
reasonable person in the recipient's position would interpret the
communication as threatening in light of all available context. I am
that recipient. The context includes:
 
— A written prediction in 2024 that someone would be hurt, followed
by a physical assault fourteen months later.
— Public statements in 2020 that it was "a challenge not to deck him,"
followed five years later by exactly that outcome.
— The specific and exclusive application of the word "stalker" to me
across six years of documented proceedings.
— The post being published eleven days after a court hearing in the
same matter and fifteen days before the arraignment at which I was
the complaining witness.
 
This family's documented behavioral pattern is to state intentions
and deliver on them. This post is a statement of intent. Your office
classified it in April 2026 as "part of a musical performance" that
"does not clearly establish that the statements are directed toward
you specifically." I respectfully submit that the six-year documented
record of this family stating intentions and delivering on them
constitutes the context that resolves what isolation obscures.
 
 
IV. REQUESTS
 
I respectfully ask that your office:
 
1. Evaluate the reported social conduct by Katherine Hennessey —
including her expressed anger at Zachary Livingston and her stated
disposition to "do something about it when I see something wrong" —
for potential witness intimidation under M.G.L. c. 268 §13B and
for potential bail violation.
 
2. Preserve and review court video from both the March 12, 2026 HPO
hearing and the April 7, 2026 arraignment before any routine
overwrite cycle, specifically for the documented gesture sequences
described above.
 
3. Reconsider the prior classification of the March 23, 2026 Instagram
post in light of the full six-year contextual record, and evaluate
it for witness intimidation and bail condition violations applicable
to the defendants whose daughter posted it.
 
4. Consider whether a motion for bail revocation or modification is
warranted by the cumulative conduct documented in this letter.
 
5. Confirm that this notice has been placed in the case file for both
captioned dockets.
 
Additional details from the firsthand source can be made available to
an assigned investigator under appropriate conditions. I have chosen
not to identify the source in this letter to protect them from being
drawn into the proceedings.
 
The complete documented archive is publicly available at
johnsendelbach.com. No login. No fee. I am available for a meeting
with the assigned prosecutor at any time.
 
 
Respectfully,
 
John F. Sendelbach
Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
May 26, 2026