A former judge who accused her ex-boyfriend - a former police detective - of beating her testified during the second day of his assault trial Tuesday that he proposed marriage and begged her to drop the charges following the Oct. 17, 2009 incident.
Leslie Fleisher, who served as a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge from 2001 until this March, said Lewis B. Palmer III told her during a July phone call: "I love you ... There's no one else in the world for me."
Fleisher, 48, said her reaction was: "You've got to be kidding."
Palmer, 49, who was terminated as a detective in the Philadelphia D.A.'s office because of the arrest, is on trial in Common Pleas Court charged with aggravated and simple assault and violating wiretap laws for allegedly recording six phone calls the judge made to him without her consent.
Pennsylvania Deputy Attorney General Bill Davis - who is prosecuting in the place of the city D.A.'s office - told the jury that Palmer attacked Fleisher during a domestic abuse incident at her Old City home, and that he had no excuse for his actions.
A. Charles Peruto Jr., Palmer's attorney, contended that the hot tempered, drug-using Fleisher jumped on Palmer's back. She was injured when he spun her around to get her off his back and her head hit a wall, Peruto said.
Fleisher suffered a two-to-three-inch gash to the back of her head and multiple scrapes to her legs, knees, elbows and back.
Testimony concluded in the trial Tuesday and the jury is expected to begin deliberations Tuesday afternoon.
In his closing arguments before the jury of eight women and four men, Peruto said Palmer was a good cop who served Philadelphia for 17 years and should not be convicted on false allegations made by Fleisher, whom he labeled “nuts.”
“You don’t know squat about Leslie Fleisher…I am handcuffed [from telling you] because of the rules of evidence. And you can only imagine what I’m talking about,” said Peruto, who dropped hints throughout the two-day trial that Fleisher was a cocaine user.
“We don’t have some thief on trial, and this city is riddled with them. You have Detective Palmer, who has served you well,” an animated Peruto said.
Prosecutor Davis turned some of Peruto’s insults of Fleisher back on Palmer.
If Leslie Fleisher is nuts what does this say about his client, who was with her for four years?”
Davis reminded the jury that Palmer was a former narcotics officer. “If she’s doing cocaine for four years, what’s he doing?” Davis asked.
He said Peruto engaged in character assassination of Fleisher to diminish the crimes Palmer committed against her. Choking someone and slamming their head into a wall, as Fleisher testified Palmer had done to her, constitutes aggravated assault, Davis told the jury.
Fleisher testified Tuesday that she went home without treatment after waiting at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital for more than four hours.
During tense cross-examination, Peruto questioned Fleisher's story, and even asked if she had majored in theater in college.
Senior Chester County Common Pleas Judge Charles B. Smith said the answer would be interesting to know, but ruled that it was not relevant to the trial. (Smith is presiding because Fleisher's former employment with the Philadelphia court system.)
Peruto grilled Fleisher on why, if the alleged attack took place at 7:20 p.m., she waited until 8:50 p.m. to call the police.
"I don't know," a befuddled Fleisher answered.
"Yes you do," Peruto shot back.
"I couldn't get off the floor to make a phone call ... My head was hurting," Fleisher responded, after Peruto rephrased the question.
"Did you ingest anything that prevented you from making a phone call?" asked Peruto, who has accused the judge of using cocaine.
"No," Fleisher responded.
Fleisher testified that she loved Palmer and initially did not want to see him go to prison but changed her mind after "he hurt me again."
She said Palmer pushed her to the ground during a March confrontation in front of his Northeast home and told her to "get out of here."
Fleisher could not explain why she did not report the incident to police given that Palmer was out of jail on bail after being charged with attacking her.
Despite that incident, Fleisher said Palmer still pursued her romantically, and as late as July had sent her a text message proposing marriage.
She said she does not want to marry him, despite having received three diamond rings from him.
