Wife charged with spousal abuse seeks contact with children
A woman charged with prolonged and severe abuse of her husband at their Salem home moved a step closer to seeing their two children Monday when a Superior Court judge agreed to a slight modification of a protective order prohibiting her from having contact with the children.
Jillian Washburn, who has not seen the children since she was arrested in December 2015, now has to convince a family court judge to allow supervised visits of the children.
Judge Barbara Bailey Jongbloed, who presides over criminal trials, issued the ruling after listening to testimony about Washburn's progress since her arrest.
"I'm not indicating there should be supervised visitation, but that this is a decision that should be made by the family court," Jongbloed said in issuing her ruling from the bench.
According to testimony, Washburn, 33, moved to New York and began therapy after she was charged with second-degree assault, second-degree threatening, risk of injury to a minor, unlawful restraint, cruelty to a person, first-degree sexual assault and second-degree strangulation. The alleged victim has custody of the children. The couple's divorce trial, pending in Superior Court in Norwich, is scheduled for August.
The state alleges that Washburn abused the man over a long period of time and that the children frequently witnessed Washburn hitting him. He went to the police after a Nov. 26, 2015, attack in which he said she struck him in the face multiple times, causing his mouth to bleed, assaulted him with a wire clothes hanger and hit him with a lint roller. He said she had cut the tip of his penis and stabbed him in the stomach with a pair of scissors.
A portion of the Nov. 26 attacks and other incidents were recorded with a GoPro video camera that the victim said Washburn made him wear because she did not trust him, according to an arrest warrant application.
Washburn's attorney, Donald R. Beebe, contends that the couple engaged in a consensual relationship in which the husband was the dominant person and wanted to be injured.
Prosecutor David J. Smith said the defense characterization of the case is at odds with what is on the videos. He arged that Monday that there was nothing to warrant putting the children in the presence of Washburn. Attorney Lori Hellum, guardian ad litem for the children, attended part of the hearing but did not testify.
Dr. Judith Gibbons, a New York City pyschologist who has been treating Washburn, testified that Washburn has made "tremendous progress" over the past year in therapy and that she has attended parenting classes and anger management sessions. She said Washburn had been a loving mother to the children and that they should be reunited in a safe and supervised setting.
Judge Jongbloed said that in agreeing to modify the protective order, she took into account that the criminal case has been pending for a long time and does not appear to be going to trial any time soon. The prosecutor and defense attorney continue to discuss the case during Washburn's scheduled court appearances.
