Charges in assault case are dropped
NASHUA – The assault charge filed against a Hudson man who allegedly shoved a woman into a snow-covered median in February, an apparent road rage confrontation captured on cellphone video, has been dismissed.
Court documents show Nashua District Court Judge James Leary dismissed the single count of misdemeanor simple assault against Ricardo Montanez, 28, after the alleged victim didn’t show up in court for a hearing on the matter.
Leary ordered the charge dismissed without prejudice, which means the charge could be refiled if prosecutors decide to do so. There were no objections to the dismissal order, according to the documents.
The charge accused Montanez of “knowingly causing unpriviledged physical contact” to the woman by pushing her onto the snow-covered median on Amherst Street near Henri Burque Drive on Feb. 18.
The video, which was recorded by a bystander stopped in traffic, went viral.
Montanez and his lawyer, Nashua attorney Joseph Fricano, had filed a notice of self-defense, asserting that Montanez was “legally justified” in pushing the woman because she allegedly banged on his car, tried to open his door and “seemed fixated on escalating the already tense situation.”
Montanez, in his account of the sequence of events, said he was stopped behind the woman’s vehicle at the intersection of Amherst and Broad streets. When the light turned green, the woman’s vehicle “remained stationary, (and) the operator appeared distracted while talking on her cellphone,” according to Montanez’s observations.
Montanez said when he blew his horn, the vehicle drove off, but the driver allegedly traveled “at an excessively slow speed while the operator displayed vulgar finger gestures.”
At the point which Amherst Street becomes four lanes, Montanez passed the female driver, then stopped at a red light at Amherst and Henri Burque. She pulled up behind him and, according to the statement, “began to honk her horn excessively.”
Montanez claimed he got out of his car, “beckoned towards” the woman, who “responded with racial vulgarities.” While “she was yelling at Montanez … the woman allowed her car to hit” Montanez’s vehicle, the documents state.
According to one of the witnesses, Montanez was back in his car when woman allegedly “got out of her vehicle … banged on his car” then allegedly banged on his window “and tried to open the driver’s door.”
At that point, according to the documents, Montanez’s concerns over allegedly being confronted by the woman prompted him to push her, using “non-deadly force” for which he “was legally justified,” the documents state.