UPDATE — EDITOR’S NOTE: We received this letter from Larry Freedman’s son, which will be published as a letter to the editor in Sunday’s print edition of the PDN:
My name is Peter Freedman.
I am Larry Freedman’s son — and a witness to the incident brought up in the 1991 civil lawsuit.
At no point did my father touch my mother during this event.
These accusations were brought up to create leverage in a divorce two years later.
At the time of the lawsuit, both my sister, who was 12 years old, and I, who was 14, were living with my mother.
We were both witnesses to what happened that night.
But instead of putting us in the position to have to testify in court, against our mother, my father settled.
Because of this action, both my sister and I still have a great relationship with both of our parents.
My father did the noble thing to protect his kids.
As a Republican, I want to thank my party for bringing this painful memory back up.
This type of mudslinging makes it easy for me to do as my father taught me — and vote for the person, not the party.
I spoke to Paul Gottlieb last night but obviously my comments did not make the article.
Peter Freedman,
Arlington, Va.
———-
By Paul Gottlieb
Peninsula Daily News
PORT ANGELES — Larry Freedman, candidate for Clallam County prosecuting attorney, settled a 1991 civil lawsuit in which his former wife, Doreen, alleged he pounded her head against a sink and countertop two years earlier, “causing severe and permanent injury,” according to Fairfax County, Va., Circuit Court records.
Freedman — a 72-year-old Sequim lawyer and Democrat running against two-term incumbent Republican Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly, 57, in the Nov. 2 general election — called the allegation that he had struck his former wife “an absolute lie.”
Details of the civil suit were recently supplied to the Peninsula Daily News by the state Republican Party.
Kelly was out of town Thursday and did not return calls for comment.
Her campaign manager, Maggie Roth, said Kelly’s campaign was unaware of any of the information until late Wednesday.
The documents given to the PDN also included court records about a misdemeanor assault and a 1998 bankruptcy that Freedman said resulted from his divorce from his former wife.
Freedman pleaded guilty in 1995 to misdemeanor assault in an incident involving his ex-wife’s new husband, Freedman confirmed this week.
A $500 fine on the charge was reduced to $100, and Freedman’s 10-day jail sentence was suspended.
Said state Republican Party Chairman Luke Esser: “The bottom line is, he is a convicted criminal.”
Esser would not say where he got the information and said he did not tell Kelly he was giving the information to the PDN.
Roth said Thursday that on late Wednesday, she received the same two-page “Factual Summary” received by the PDN — but not other documents — by e-mail from someone she would not name.
“If this is all fact,” Roth said, “if he beat his wife and has a DV [domestic violence], if he beat up his ex-wife’s husband, is that the person I want for county prosecutor?”
Freedman saw political motives behind the dissemination of the cases.
“Obviously, they want to try to bring up something from 16 or 18 years ago to try to get Kelly elected,” he said.
Freedman denied beating his former wife 21 years ago or in any way ever assaulting her.
He said he pleaded guilty to the assault and settled the civil suit so that his children — the couple had four — would not be drawn into what he described as a fractious marriage that ended in a messy divorce.
Freedman had discussed the assault case in the past without giving specifics.
Freedman’s wife filed the civil suit after the couple were separated but before their divorce was finalized in 1992.
The lawsuit alleged that while they were still living together in Oakton Va., on Aug. 5, 1989, he assaulted her “by hitting her about her body and by grabbing her head and striking the same repeatedly against a sink and countertop.”
The lawsuit said she “sustained various bodily injuries, including severe and permanent injury to her inner ear.”
Freedman said his wife was injured when she hit her head on a dock during an argument with neighbors at Chesapeake Bay, Md.
“She had too much to drink,” he said.
She was knocking the neighbors’ chairs into the water when she fell in, hitting her head, Freedman said.
Freedman said he was about 25 yards away when she fell.
He said that, once she was out of the water, he prevented her from throwing a chair at the neighbors by gripping the chair.
Two years later, in 1991, when the two were separated, she filed a civil suit in Fairfax County Circuit Court for $100,000 in compensatory damages and $100,000 in punitive damages.
Freedman agreed to pay all of her medical expenses stemming from the incident.
“I never had to pay one dollar on it,” Freedman said.
Otherwise, she would have filed the suit immediately and would not have dropped her demand for $200,000, he said.
The misdemeanor assault case resulted from an incident that occurred after she had remarried, he said.
Both remained in Fairfax County after their divorce.
According to Freedman’s account, he had made previous court-approved arrangements to pick up his two sons, who were about 9 and 11, at her home to take them to a birthday party.
The children did not appear to be there, and she and her new husband would not tell Freedman where they were, Freedman said.
The three were arguing when his ex-wife’s husband “got up and came at me,” Freedman said.
“He was bigger than I am,” he said.
As the man stepped forward, Freedman stepped forward, too.
“I straight-armed him with my left hand in the side of the cheek and moved away,” Freedman said. “That was it.”
Freedman’s lawyer advised him to plead guilty.
“I made a mistake in swinging before he got to me,” he said. “I should have known better.”
The debts under the 1998 bankruptcy were satisfied within two years, Freedman added.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
