Athens County Commissioner Mark Sullivan was found not guilty of domestic violence after a bench trial in Athens County Municipal Court Friday.
This means also that Sullivan, 52, will not have to serve a suspended 30-day jail sentence he was facing from a previous conviction of persistent disorderly conduct last July. In that case, Sullivan pleaded to a reduced charge in connection with an alleged domestic violence incident involving his then-wife at their Millfield home.
Judge William Grim concluded Friday that there was reasonable doubt about whether Sullivan deliberately "head-butted" his niece in a Jan. 10 incident at the home of Sullivan's mother in Nelsonville, where both Mark and his niece, 29-year-old Samantha Sullivan, were living at the time.
Grim noted that the main prosecution witnesses – Samantha "Sammy" Sullivan and her girlfriend, who was also present in the home at the time – told a story that differed significantly from that of Sullivan and his 13-year-old son, who also witnessed the incident.
"There are two very different versions" of what happened that evening, the judge said, putting some doubt in his mind as to whether Mark Sullivan, as his niece alleged on the stand, deliberately slammed his forehead into her face during the course of a heated argument about parking arrangements at their home.
At one point during the dispute, she said, Mark Sullivan pointed his finger at her, told her "I'm not f---ing talking to you about this any more," then charged up a short flight of steps to where she was standing at the top and assaulted her.
"He rushed up to me, and head-butted me in the face," she testified.
"So you believe he intentionally struck you?" asked Nelsonville prosecutor Richard Hedges.
"Without a doubt," Samantha Sullivan replied.
Her girlfriend, Brooke Harmon, gave corroborating testimony, claiming to have seen the head-butt take place while looking through the front door of the home.
Witnesses on both sides confirmed that an argument and physical contact took place.
Sullivan, however, claimed that while his head did collide with his niece's face, this was caused when she stepped suddenly in front of him as he was trying to get up the stairs to leave the house for a meeting.
"Sammy stepped right in front of me," he said.
Mark Sullivan's 13-year-old son, who said he witnessed the scene, agreed that "Sammy stepped right in front of him and the two collided."
Hedges questioned how, if Mark Sullivan's story is true, he managed to get an injury on the upper part of his head which he said strongly suggests that the commissioner deliberately head-butted his niece.
Defense attorney Tom McGuire, however, raised questions about how Harmon could have seen the head-butt take place as she claimed, because she was behind Samantha Sullivan, about 32 feet away, suggesting Samantha Sullivan would have been directly in the line of sight between Harmon and Mark Sullivan.
Sullivan left the courtroom right after the verdict without speaking to The Athens NEWS. Samantha Sullivan declined to comment on the outcome of the trial.
Special prosecutor Colleen Williams, who was assigned to Mark Sullivan's earlier case, had asked that Grim impose his underlying jail sentence based on the argument that his new offense violated the terms of his jail suspension.
Based on Friday's not-guilty verdict, however, Grim chose not to impose the jail.
