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Garfield not guilty of felony

By Dean Shalhoup - Senior Staff Writer | Oct 4, 2019

NASHUA – Although a Superior Court jury on Thursday convicted Milford resident Wayne Garfield of a violation-level disorderly conduct charge, the panel acquitted him of the far more serious count of felony criminal threatening with a deadly weapon.

Attorney Amanda Henderson, who represented Garfield with attorney Eleftheria Keans, said her client was sentenced on the disorderly conduct charge immediately after jurors rendered their verdict.

He was ordered to pay a $500 fine, of which $400 was suspended, leaving him with a $100 tab.

The criminal threatening charge accused Garfield of swinging a length of copper pipe at a man during a verbal argument that escalated into the alleged confrontation, according to the lawyers in the case.

The man, who did odd jobs and maintenance work for the couple that managed the apartment building at 514 Nashua St., where Garfield lived at the time, testified that Garfield came after him with what he thought at first was either a tire iron or crow bar.

The item, which the prosecutor, Assistant County Attorney Lisa Drescher, displayed in court on Wednesday, turned out to be a roughly 2-foot-long copper pipe with “elbows” affixed to both ends.

Drescher said Garfield was angry, and displayed that anger by threatening to kill the handyman and by shouting profanities.

“Did he hit you?” Drescher asked. “No,” the handyman answered, estimating he and Garfield were about 3 feet from one another.

“He said, ‘I’m gonna kill you’ several times. He was really upset with me,” the handyman added.

But Henderson described a scenario in which Garfield’s “neighbors didn’t like him from the start … they disliked him so much they tried to get him out of his apartment,” she said.

Garfield, who lived in the basement apartment, often had to deal with water problems, including sewage backup, which he blamed on the managers, who lived upstairs, according to testimony.

Going into trial, the disorderly conduct charge was a Class A misdemeanor, but Judge Jacalyn Colburn granted part of a motion by the defense that lowered it to a violation-level offense.

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256, dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com or @Telegraph_DeanS.

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