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" |
Section 1 — Emotional Impact
The assault of November 30, 2025 left me with symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder that have not resolved. I cannot move through parts of my own community — including both bridges and the street where my studio is located — without experiencing acute anxiety. I have left a light on in my apartment every night for six years. I now lock my door every time I leave. I did not used to do either of these things.
I live with chronic hypervigilance. I scan for the defendants every time I move through Shelburne Falls. I cannot distinguish people who have been told lies about me from people who haven't. That loss of basic social safety in a community I have lived and worked in for eighteen years is not something that resolves when proceedings end.
My relationship with my partner has been severely damaged. To protect her from the ongoing stress I made an agreement not to discuss the case with her, which left me without any support system throughout this ordeal. I researched, documented, and prepared legal filings entirely in isolation. My father died during this period. My mother died during this period.
I have been afraid to advertise my professional work for six years because reputational damage from the 2020 campaign remains indexed on the first page of search results for my name. I am a metalworker and public artist with thirty years of permanent installations in this community. I have been unable to practice my profession at scale since this began.
As recently as late May 2026 — while the defendant was on bail — I learned she was publicly expressing hostility toward the Commonwealth's key witness. Learning this re-traumatized me acutely. The mechanism that produced the assault appears to still be running.
Section 2 — Physical Impact
I was hospitalized in late 2020 and received a formal diagnosis of atrial fibrillation, attributed by my physician to the chronic stress of this campaign. What was previously episodic atrial fibrillation has, as of the date of this statement, become persistent and unremitting. As of June 5, 2026 I have been in continuous atrial fibrillation for months following events in spring 2026 connected to this case and its aftermath.
The functional consequences are present every moment of every day. Climbing a flight of stairs produces the sensation of climbing five. Bending to tie my shoes produces dizziness upon standing. Minimal physical tasks produce fatigue disproportionate to their demand. I am aware of my cardiac state continuously.
Atrial fibrillation carries documented risk of stroke, heart attack, and permanent cardiac disability. The medical literature establishes that repeated episodes are self-reinforcing. I am sixty years old. On October 19, 2025 — six weeks before the assault — State Police documented my heart rate at 130 to 230 beats per minute using a LIFEPAK 15 cardiac monitor. That was my baseline going into November 30, 2025.
Section 3 — Financial Impact
One iPhone SE was seized during the assault and thrown into the Deerfield River while still recording. Replacement cost per documented receipt: [amount to be filled in].
I have been unable to pursue professional commissions at the scale my career previously operated at for six years due to reputational damage caused by this campaign. I have sustained my income through an eBay resale operation unrelated to my thirty-year profession as a metalworker and landscape designer.
Section 4 — Sentence Recommendation
I am requesting a custodial sentence for Katherine Hennessey.
I am requesting a permanent no-contact and stay-away order as a condition of any sentence imposed, given the six-year documented pattern of escalating conduct that produced this assault.
The defendant has demonstrated across six years that non-custodial consequences do not affect her conduct. As recently as May 2026, while on bail, she was expressing hostility toward the Commonwealth's key witness. She intimidated me with deliberate obscene gestures in two separate courtrooms — once during a protection hearing and once at her own arraignment. She has never acknowledged responsibility for any of her conduct toward me.
Regarding Brook Batteau: I leave his sentence to the court's discretion.
John F. Sendelbach Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts June 2026
~~~~~~~~~~~
OFFICE OF THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY, NORTHWESTERN DISTRICT VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT
RE: Commonwealth vs. Catherine Hennessey, Docket # 2641CR0158
1. Emotional Impact
The assault of November 30, 2025 was not an isolated incident. It was the predictable endpoint of a five-year campaign of documented harassment, false police reports, and institutional abandonment that began in June 2020.
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. I wake with cardiac episodes. Each episode returns me directly to the source of the trauma.
The pattern was not one sustained injury. It was a recurring cycle, and each cycle compounded the last.
June 2020: Three weeks of continuous heart palpitations following discovery of the Facebook campaign. Lost approximately thirty pounds. First prolonged cardiac episode of my life. Hospitalized later that year and officially diagnosed with atrial fibrillation.
March through June 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. Then, because the court used the wrong address, I received a summons for criminal harassment charges with only ten days notice. I prepared a thorough defense. Detective Jenkins sat for nearly an hour reviewing video evidence that did not merely disprove the claims against me — it showed on screen, visibly, that the claimant had lied and had done the things she accused me of doing. He took no action. I contacted Chief Bardwell directly. He told me he trusted his officers and directed me to the DA or the Attorney General. I went to the DA's Victim Advocate office. The advocate told me it sounded like Bardwell should be doing something — and then 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. I brought this back to Bardwell. He refused to act. Two years later I was assaulted on a public sidewalk. No one who failed to act during those two years has acknowledged any responsibility for what their inaction enabled.
March 2025: I spent approximately three weeks writing the affidavits for the final Harassment Prevention Order hearing. I documented the escalating pattern in detail. I 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.
The HPO proceedings of March 2026 — a sequence that compounded every prior failure:
In late February 2026, the Greenfield Recorder published a front-page, above-the-fold profile of the defendants — a glowing piece presenting them as community-minded artists — on the same day the April 7 arraignment was publicly announced. The newspaper that had published defamatory coverage of me in 2020 without ever seeking my comment, and had never corrected the record despite the Change.org petition being removed for defamation violations, was now running feel-good coverage of the people about to be arraigned for assaulting me, on the day their arraignment was announced. The combination triggered acute cardiac symptoms. I decided to seek a Harassment Prevention Order.
On approximately March 1 or 2, 2026, I appeared before Judge Mazanec for an ex parte hearing. Judge Mazanec remembered me from the December 15, 2025 hearing. He told me he believed I deserved a hearing. That statement — from the judge who had witnessed her perjury three times and denied her petition with prejudice — carried real weight. It assured me that the court's memory of this matter was intact. We agreed together that rather than seeking an emergency order I would pursue a properly noticed full hearing. I was trying to do it right. I was being the cooperative party.
On March 11, 2026, I appeared before Judge Powers. The defendant's attorney, Marissa Elkins, claimed her client had only learned of the hearing three days prior. I knew this was false. The post office worker had told me that the defendant came in and refused the registered mail the Friday before — which means she knew about the hearing, calculated that Elkins wouldn't have sufficient preparation time, and engineered the continuance request deliberately to extend my wait by another two weeks, as she had done before. Attorney Elkins requested a two-week continuance. I interrupted — I did not wait for the judge, I simply said no, not two weeks, absolutely not. 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 most important facts supporting my petition — including the three prior judicial findings that the defendant's sworn testimony was not credible, the prior vacated HPO, and the active criminal charges pending against both defendants — were in the record I was forbidden to reference. I was the victim being treated as though presenting my own case was an imposition on the court's time.
I presented the 2025 incidents from memory for approximately twenty minutes without notes. Then Judge Powers asked whether the defendant was getting arraigned — information that was explicitly listed in the appendix of the forty-page document submitted the day before. The clerk confirmed the arraignment from a document sitting on the bench. The judge had not read the supplemental he had implied reviewing. The most significant fact in my petition — that the person I was seeking protection from was days away from being arraigned on criminal assault charges arising from her attack on me — was unknown to the judge presiding over my protection hearing because he had not read what I submitted.
This is not a procedural footnote. This is a judge ruling on whether an assault victim needed protection from his attacker without knowing the attacker had already been charged with assaulting him.
Attorney Elkins then cross-examined me based entirely on fabrications from the defendant's perjured December 1, 2025 affidavit — the same affidavit that had already been shredded at the December 15 hearing. She asked whether footage of the November 22 frog mask incident even existed — footage that was in affidavits she should have reviewed, that had been discussed at the December 15 hearing, and that the defendant herself had referenced in her own sworn statements. Attorney Elkins had not pulled the prior case record. She had not watched the videos. She recycled fabrications that had already been adjudicated and discarded, and I was forbidden under the no-rehash instruction from telling the judge they had been adjudicated and discarded. Judge Powers rebuked Attorney Elkins on the record during the hearing for overreaching — specifically regarding her characterization of my YouTube channel — which confirms the cross-examination's bad faith was visible to the court even as I was forbidden from addressing its substance.
During this cross-examination, in open court, the defendant made an obscene gesture — pushing her glasses up with her middle finger — directed at me. I identified it on the record. Judge Powers told me that calling it out did not help my case. She intimidated me in open court. The judge saw it. The response was to tell the victim to stop noticing.
A bailiff shouted directly into my hearing-impaired ear at one point during the proceeding. I had disclosed my hearing impairment. The court did not intervene. The ADA accommodation request I had submitted for these proceedings — formally disclosing my atrial fibrillation and hearing impairment and requesting that court personnel not shout at me — was not honored.
The hearing triggered a six-day atrial fibrillation episode that did not resolve until March 17, 2026. The proceeding designed to protect me from ongoing harm produced six days of documented cardiac crisis. The promise implicit in Judge Mazanec's statement that I deserved a hearing — the assurance that the court's memory was intact — was not honored by the hearing I actually received.
Each of these cycles came with its own sustained period of atrial fibrillation. This is not a manageable inconvenience. Atrial fibrillation carries documented risk of stroke, heart attack, and permanent cardiac disability. On October 19, 2025 — six weeks before the assault — a State Police officer became so concerned about my cardiac state during a testimony session that he insisted on calling EMS over my objection. The Stryker LIFEPAK 15 cardiac monitor recorded my heart rate fluctuating between 130 and 230 beats per minute. That reading is documented and photographed. That was my baseline condition going into November 30, 2025. The assault occurred in a body already in documented cardiac crisis from five years of sustained threat exposure.
I have since identified symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder. I cannot enter certain parts of Shelburne Falls — including both bridges, my own public artwork, and the street where my studio is located — without experiencing acute anxiety. I have left a light on in my apartment continuously for six years. I did not used to lock my door. I now lock it every time I leave. I live with the awareness that one of the 20,000 people who viewed the original video — a video whose comment thread included documented death threats against me — may still intend to act on those threats. That awareness does not diminish. It has been present every day for six years.
The most difficult aspect of this experience to articulate is what might be called the feedback loop of false pariah-dom. Every attempt I made to correct the record — the police reports I filed, the HPO petitions, the public documentation — was processed by the community and the institutions around me as evidence of instability rather than evidence of harm. My legitimate efforts to seek accountability were recoded as obsession. The defense of my own record was treated as confirmation of the designation. This created a condition researchers describe as social vertigo: I remained the same person, my work remained the same, my documented record remained the same — yet I was treated as an alien element in my own community. That condition does not resolve when the court proceedings end. It was installed by what these defendants set in motion and it runs without them now.
I want the court to understand that the institutional abandonment documented in this case predates June 6, 2020. In August 2019 — nine months before the Iron Bridge confrontation — a sitting member of the Bridge of Flowers Committee sent me a threatening email stating: "Keep hitting me and I will not hesitate. You don't know who you are fucking with. You are dead to me. Only when you call my name out, will I reawaken and I promise it will get ugly." I reported this to Sergeant Gilmore in 2020. Police took no action. That committee member subsequently recused herself from the June 2020 deliberations about my work without disclosing the email. The institutional abandonment did not begin with the petition. The petition activated a structure that was already hostile.
My relationship with my partner has been severely damaged by this five-year ordeal. The sustained anxiety of this situation affected her health directly. I made an agreement with her that I would not discuss the case with her in order to protect her, which meant I had no support system for the duration of this five-year ordeal. I researched, documented, and prepared legal filings in complete isolation.
My father died during this period. My mother died during this period. My remaining siblings are distant and occupied with their own families. I have had no institutional support — not from the police, not from the select board, not from the Bridge of Flowers Committee, not from the courts prior to this prosecution. I exhausted every available avenue before this assault finally produced criminal charges.
The most persistent damage is not the people I know oppose me. It is that I can no longer distinguish them from everyone else. A woman who crosses the street may be reacting to a six-year-old lie or she may simply be going somewhere. I cannot know. I used to know. That loss — of basic social legibility in the community I built things for — is not something that resolves when the court proceedings end. It was installed by what these defendants set in motion and it runs without them now. It is a daily part of my existence, wondering if this person or that person is believing the lies. That is what a false designation does when it goes uncorrected for six years. It becomes ambient. It becomes the water.
The ongoing re-traumatization — after the assault, continuing to the present:
The trauma of this campaign does not arrive in single events and resolve. It accumulates in layers, and each new discovery reopens what preceded it. Maintaining the archive that documents this case has itself become a source of ongoing harm: stumbling onto new evidence means stumbling onto new injury.
One pattern I was eventually able to document concerns the origins of this campaign's operating method. The family at the center of this case — through their band Kalliope Jones — ran a version of this same program on a volunteer judge at a 2015 Battle of the Bands competition, generating a national viral story, forcing the judge into protective anonymity, and facing no institutional accountability whatsoever. That contest was the prototype. What happened to me was the refined version, executed by the same people on a larger target with more developed technique. Discovering that I was not the first application of this method — that it had been practiced and perfected before it was turned on me — was not a minor revelation. It was a reckoning with something that had been operational long before June 6, 2020.
In late May 2026 — months after the assault, with both defendants on bail — I learned through a credible firsthand source that Katherine Hennessey was publicly expressing anger at Zachary Livingston, the Commonwealth's key neutral witness, and was heard to say: "When I see something wrong, I just have to do something about it." Learning this re-traumatized me acutely. It confirmed that she has not changed, that the mechanism that produced the assault is still running, and — most disturbingly — that she was directing her stated disposition to act toward the man whose sworn testimony is sitting in the Commonwealth's case file. I have formally notified the DA's office of this conduct in writing on May 26, 2026. The witness she is pressuring is also a close personal friend of mine, which she does not know. The insidiousness of this — that her targeting of the prosecution's witness is also targeting my personal support network — is consistent with the six-year pattern of this campaign finding pressure points I didn't know were there.
I also discovered that Alouette Batteau posted a video to her public social media titled "John Sendelbach Part Two" — naming me explicitly in the title. The original video she posted in June 2020 did documented damage to my life and career. She knew it had. Titling the follow-up "Part Two" with my name is not coincidence. It is a statement of intent with demonstrated awareness of the harm the first one caused.
The discovery of Alouette Batteau's March 23, 2026 Instagram post — published eleven days after the March 12 HPO hearing and fifteen days before the April 7 arraignment, stating "I never wished so much to k1ll a man with my bare hands" with the caption "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 episode has not resolved. As of the date of this statement — June 5, 2026 — I have been in a persistent, unremitting state of atrial fibrillation for months. It began with that combination: a death-wish post directed at the person exclusively referred to as "stalker" in six years of this family's sworn filings, and an official response from the chief of police that it was just a song. The dismissal was the injury that the post opened the door to.
The April 7, 2026 arraignment produced additional documented intimidation. During the rote arraignment proceeding at which both defendants entered pleas and bail conditions were imposed, the defendant performed an obscene gesture toward me — pushing her glasses up with her middle finger — multiple times from across the aisle while making sustained direct eye contact. She then switched hands and repeated it. As Attorney Elkins walked ahead toward the hallway, unaware, the defendant turned back and performed the gesture four to five times in rapid succession with her right hand, then switched to her left hand and repeated it two to three more times — all within approximately five seconds — deliberately positioned behind her own attorney's back, in full view of courtroom bailiffs who took no action. Glasses do not require adjustment five times in five seconds with alternating hands. The switching of hands is the physical proof that no adjustment was occurring. I chose not to report it in the moment, reasoning that the courtroom camera would document it and that reacting was precisely the response she was engineering.
The court should be aware that this gesture has a documented three-stage perjury history. On June 29, 2020, captured on the family's own video, she gave me the finger from her car. When I called it out, she stated on camera: "I give people the finger all the time — everybody can see me, I'm giving you the finger right now." On November 30, 2025, when Sergeant Gilmore asked her about the morning trespass gesture, she told him she couldn't remember if she had given me the finger because she gives people the finger all the time. At the December 15, 2025 hearing before Judge Mazanec, she testified under oath that she habitually pushes her glasses up with her middle finger and people mistake it for an obscene gesture. These three accounts cannot coexist. The first two are confessions of deliberate habitual conduct. The third is an innocent involuntary explanation offered to a judge. She selected the version most useful for each audience, in documented sequence, across five years.
The May 20, 2026 pre-trial conference added one more layer of institutional carelessness to the documented record. I missed the hearing because the court sent the required form to the wrong address. I never received it. The matter was continued to June 30, 2026 — extending my ordeal by six additional weeks through no fault of my own. This is the second time in this case that a court administrative error involving a wrong address has cost me weeks of additional trauma. The first was in 2023, when the criminal harassment summons was sent to the wrong address and I received it only ten days before the hearing — with ten days to prepare a criminal defense for charges that collapsed the moment evidence was considered.
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 into a cold puddle in the street. My phone dislodged from my hand on impact and fell to the pavement, screen lit, still recording. Batteau then jumped me from behind and punched me in the head and back a dozen or more times while I was on the ground.
I got up and away from Batteau. Katherine Hennessey then got aggressive — shoving and punching me. I turned to face away from the blows. At that point an unidentified male bystander — taller than my own six-foot-one-inch height — grabbed both my elbows from behind and pinned my arms, immobilizing me and giving Hennessey free punches to my head and face, knocking my glasses askew. I did not strike back. I screamed for help. Zachary Livingston, the brewery owner, retrieved my lost Croc from the ground and returned it to me.
Hennessey then seized my still-recording iPhone from the pavement, walked approximately seventy-five feet to the bank of the Deerfield River, and threw the lit phone into the water. I watched the screen arc into the river from approximately thirty feet away.
As I made my way back toward the brewery to find witnesses, Hennessey followed me from behind and continued punching and kicking at my legs, attempting to trip me. This second, distinct assault — occurring approximately thirty seconds after the first and after the destruction of my recording device — is the second of the two Assault and Battery counts before this court.
When I attempted to enter the brewery to find witnesses, a group of bystanders physically grabbed and blocked me, preventing entry. The bar had at least thirty people inside, seated facing the front windows. I was highly visible on the public sidewalk throughout, waving inside at one point, with people inside waving back. Not one bystander report to police emerged from that evening despite the assault occurring in plain view.
The unidentified male who pinned my arms is known to Zachary Livingston. I can visually identify him. He is taller than six feet one inch. His participation in immobilizing me during Hennessey's assault constitutes aiding and abetting and he has not been charged.
I was hospitalized in late 2020 following the onset of this campaign with the first severe cardiac episode, at which point my atrial fibrillation was formally diagnosed.
What was previously episodic atrial fibrillation — recurring but resolving — has, as of the date of this statement, become persistent and unremitting. The episode triggered by the combination of Alouette Batteau's March 23, 2026 Instagram post and Chief Bardwell's dismissive written response has not resolved. As of June 5, 2026, I have been in continuous atrial fibrillation for months. The condition that began as a stress response to the original campaign in June 2020 and was documented episodically across five years has now crossed into what presents as permanent cardiac damage.
The functional consequences are present every moment of every day. Climbing a single flight of stairs produces the exertion sensation of five flights. Bending to tie my shoes and standing upright produces dizziness. Minimal physical tasks produce fatigue disproportionate to their demand. I am aware of my cardiac state continuously — not as a background condition but as a foreground one. This is not the life I had before June 6, 2020. It is not the life I had before November 30, 2025. It is not even the life I had before Chief Bardwell told me that a post expressing a wish to kill me was just a song. Each institutional failure has moved a threshold that does not move back.
The medical literature on atrial fibrillation is unambiguous: repeated episodes are self-reinforcing. The more the heart is driven into this rhythm, the more it learns it as its default. Each episode triggered by this campaign — documented across multiple years, witnessed by State Police, recorded by cardiac monitoring equipment — has made the next episode more likely and more durable. I am experiencing the cumulative cardiac consequence of six years of documented, systematic, institutionally-enabled stress.
iPhone replacement cost: [actual receipt amount to be confirmed]
3. Financial Impact
Immediate property loss: One smartphone, thrown into the Deerfield River by the defendant while still recording the assault. The screen was lit and visible as it arced into the water.
Property damage: iPhone SE, replacement value per documented receipt: [to be confirmed]
Career destruction: I am a metalworker, sculptor, and landscape designer with thirty years of permanent public installations across western Massachusetts. Following the June 2020 campaign, a Greenfield Recorder Facebook post summarizing the petition to remove my work — over 600 signatures before being removed by Change.org for defamation and misinformation violations — remained indexed on the first page of Google search results for my name. It remains there six years later despite approximately twelve documented attempts to have it corrected or removed, including a direct conversation with the former editor.
The practical consequence: any institution, commissioner, or client researching my name encounters that post before reaching my portfolio. I cannot advertise effectively. I have not pursued commissions at the scale my career previously operated at because the reputational damage makes professional engagement effectively impossible. I have sustained my income through an eBay resale operation — work entirely unrelated to my thirty-year profession — for five years.
Prior to 2020 I had active institutional relationships with UMass Amherst, the Culinary Institute of America, Deerfield Academy, and municipal clients across the region. None of those relationships have produced work since the campaign began. I cannot calculate the precise dollar value of the commissions I did not receive because I cannot prove which institutions searched my name and decided not to call. I can state that the mechanism of that loss is documented and that it began with this campaign and continues today.
I was forced to vacate my studio at 44 State Street after nine years of continuous operation as a direct result of the 2020 campaign. I subsequently relocated twice more under pressure connected to the same defendants. Three studios. Five years. One campaign.
4. Sentence Recommendation
I am asking this court to impose a custodial sentence on Katherine Hennessey.
I am requesting a permanent no-contact and stay-away order as a condition of any sentence imposed, given the six-year documented pattern of escalating conduct that produced this assault.
She declared hatred to my face on video in June 2020: "Yeah, I hate you. Really do. That's not against the law. I can hate you all I want." Every subsequent time I attempted to correct the record with her she responded with an escalation — another false report, another legal filing, another letter to my landlord, and ultimately physical assault. That pattern, combined with her family's documented expressions of racial contempt directed at me — her husband telling me on video to "quit your white whining," her daughter posting that she is "around far too many white people" — demonstrates that this is not a person who responds to non-custodial consequences.
As recently as late May 2026 — while on bail, six months after being charged — she was publicly expressing anger at the Commonwealth's key neutral witness and stating that when she sees something wrong she has to do something about it. She has not moderated. She has not reflected. The mechanism that produced the assault is still running.
The charges before this court represent the floor of the documented record, not its ceiling.
The charges — Assault and Battery times two and Malicious Destruction of Property — represent the events of a single afternoon and evening. They do not represent the full documented record of Katherine Hennessey's conduct toward me across six years.
The evening of November 30, 2025 itself contains uncharged conduct beyond what is before this court. Tom Del Negro — guitarist in the Wonder Twins duo and a musical collaborator of the defendants' daughter Alouette Batteau on her 2023 EP — 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 before he came out — consistent with the six-year pattern of the defendants preparing social environments against me in advance. Zachary Livingston witnessed the second half of Del Negro's verbal assault. I identified Del Negro to Sergeant Gilmore by pointing him out. Gilmore's response was to tell me not to point at him. Tom Del Negro is nearly absent from Sergeant Gilmore's report despite being the initial aggressor of the evening. The failure to document the initial aggressor — while instructing the victim not to identify him — is consistent with the documented pattern of selective enforcement that characterizes this department's handling of this matter.
The morning of November 30, 2025 contains uncharged criminal conduct as well. She 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. He 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.
The failure to secure the gas station security footage — which would have documented the trespass on camera — fell on the responding officer and on Sergeant Gilmore. I subsequently attempted to locate that footage with my current landlord, spending approximately twenty to twenty-five minutes searching the system without a timestamp because my phone had been in the river since the prior night. That landlord is the one I was forced to find because Katherine Hennessey's defamatory letters to my previous landlord made that tenancy untenable. The investigating officer's failure to secure footage of a crime committed on the property of the very landlord that Hennessey's prior conduct had driven me to is not incidental. It is the institutional pattern completing one more cycle.
The June 6, 2020 originating event — in which she got within twelve inches of my face with fists clenched, locked elbows with another person to physically block my path, and stalked me across the Iron Bridge — was witnessed by police officers who stood and watched. She stated in the documented discussion thread that it was her explicit goal to move me along. She did what she stated her intention was. That is not protected speech. That is documented criminal harassment with sworn law enforcement witnesses present. No charge was ever filed for that event.
The conduct before this court is the endpoint of a documented pattern that the charging documents only partially capture. The sentence should reflect the full pattern, not only its final expression.
The false report pattern — documented floor, not ceiling.
Katherine Hennessey filed a documented pattern of false police reports against me between 2020 and 2025. Eight were compiled by Detective Pettengill and co-signed by Detective Jenkins into a single criminal harassment show-cause that produced a No Probable Cause finding on June 6, 2023 — docket 2341AC000088 — after a clerk magistrate reviewed the actual video evidence for approximately one hour. 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 — despite a ruling from the Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, a reduction in scope I voluntarily provided at the department's request, and an extended deadline I agreed to. Chief Bardwell first attempted to charge approximately $2,150 for the records. When I reduced the scope, he requested additional time rather than producing what was available without cost. The records have never arrived.
I cannot state the full number of false police reports because the department holding those records has not produced them. What I can state is that the eight compiled by Pettengill and Jenkins are the floor, not the ceiling, and that the department's refusal to produce its own records in a case where its own conduct is part of the documented pattern is not clerical delay. It is the permission structure that enabled five years of false reporting extending itself one more time.
The perjury pattern — three witnessed instances, zero referrals.
Katherine Hennessey swore falsely before this court on at least three separate occasions across four years. A sitting judge witnessed her perjury in real time during the 2021 Sonny Walters hearing — she denied locking her elbows to block my path while the video played on screen showing her doing exactly that. 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 spending fourteen minutes reviewing video that directly contradicted every material claim in her affidavit, stating on the record that he did not believe her and that he believed me. Three documented instances of witnessed perjury before the same judge across four years. Not once was she referred for perjury prosecution. Not once did the false sworn statement cost her anything beyond the immediate denial.
The assault of November 30, 2025 is the direct and foreseeable consequence of a system that imposed no cost on repeated perjury by the same person before the same court. This court now has the opportunity to impose a consequence proportionate to what that pattern produced.
She sought two Harassment Prevention Orders against me. The first, in March 2023, was vacated by Judge Mazanec after I presented audio directly contradicting her death threat claim — my actual words were "I will never get along with the likes of you," recorded while she was laughing. The second was filed the morning of December 1, 2025 — the morning after she assaulted me and threw my recording device into the Deerfield River — before I had a replacement phone and before I could file my own report. She filed for protection against the man she had beaten the night before, as a preemptive legal maneuver, while the evidence of her assault was sinking in the river. That filing was denied with prejudice by Judge Mazanec, who also made two additional independent findings across these proceedings that her testimony was not credible. Three findings of not credible. Not one perjury referral from any proceeding.
She wrote a letter to my landlord in September 2024 predicting that "it's really only a matter of time before someone gets hurt" — fourteen months before she assaulted me. She declined the landlord's offer of funded mediation. She has never been held accountable for any of this prior conduct.
She has had five years of non-custodial non-consequences and they produced a beating on a public sidewalk, courtroom intimidation at her own arraignment, social pressure on the Commonwealth's key witness while on bail, and a daughter posting death wishes publicly during active criminal proceedings. I am asking for jail time.
The institutional failure — documented and ongoing.
I am also asking this court to note, for the record, the specific and documented failure of the Shelburne Falls Police Department and its Chief to intervene when intervention was both possible and repeatedly requested.
The institutions that failed to protect me did not fail through malice in most cases. They chose the path of least resistance — the performative gesture calibrated to the prevailing narrative — while the permanent documented reality of my thirty-year record was made invisible through bureaucratic silence. That is not an excuse. It is an explanation of how a man can be destroyed in a community where nobody had to be evil. The machinery only required people to be busy, to value cognitive ease, and to defer to institutional authority. This court is the first institution in six years that cannot make that choice. I am asking it not to.
In August 2025 I submitted a formal public records request to the Shelburne Falls Police Department seeking documentation that would have directly corroborated my claims regarding the pattern of harassment. As documented above, the request yielded nothing. No records were ever produced despite a ruling from the Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth. Chief Bardwell at one point asked me to prepare a presentation of the evidence for him before he would consider taking action — evidence that already existed in the court record, on video, in sworn statements, and on a thumb drive the court held. He asked me to reassemble and re-present material that was already documented and already before the court. That is not a good-faith request for information. It is an instruction to retraumatize myself in order to justify action the existing record already warranted.
In November 2025 — weeks before the assault — I encountered Chief Bardwell at a gas station and raised my concerns directly. He told me he could not charge people for filing false reports — a statement that is factually incorrect under Massachusetts law, and which is captured on video. He then referred me to the Attorney General. The Attorney General's office handles systemic civil rights violations and major public corruption — it is not the appropriate venue for individual false police report complaints at the local level. I had already been to the DA's office, which had told me this matter was Bardwell's responsibility. The circle was complete: the DA said it was the chief's job; the chief said he lacked the authority he actually possessed; the chief then sent me to an office that does not handle matters of this kind. No one acted. The assault occurred weeks later.
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" that did "not clearly establish that the statements are directed toward you specifically." The word "stalker" is not generic language in this record. It 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 of proceedings. Chief Bardwell's characterization of that post as unrelated to me is not a judgment call made in good faith. It is the permission structure's final documented expression. And it triggered the cardiac episode that has not resolved.
The through-line is this: 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, or that I should prepare yet another presentation of evidence that already existed. At one hearing I was forbidden from referencing the prior record while simultaneously being cross-examined on fabrications drawn from that same record. At another I disclosed a life-threatening cardiac emergency and was subjected to a six-day episode as a direct consequence of how the proceeding was conducted. The assault is not only the product of the defendant's conduct. It is partly the product of a system that had every opportunity to intervene and declined each time, while the escalation I was documenting continued uninterrupted toward its inevitable conclusion.
Regarding Brook Batteau: his role, while criminal, was a single physical act without the five-year premeditation record that characterizes the Hennessey case. 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 BodΔ | 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 BlΓΌh-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.