Divorce litigant is sentenced for hatchet attack on wife's lawyer
A Massachusetts man was sentenced on Wednesday to seven to nine years in prison for attacking his wife’s divorce lawyer with a hatchet and wasp spray.
The defendant, 54-year-old Michael Kelly of Quincy, was sentenced after pleading guilty on Wednesday to armed assault with intent to murder, the Patriot Ledger reports.
Lawyer Robert Johnson described the February attack before the sentencing. Johnson said Kelly attacked him in a parking garage, repeatedly hitting Johnson on the head with a hatchet and spraying him with the insect killer. “I thought, ‘This is it. I’m going to die,’ ” Johnson said.
Johnson told the court that he made up his mind during the attack that he would survive, and was able to lie on top of the hatchet after falling to the ground. After the attack, Johnson sought help from a bystander, who recorded and posted a video of the injured lawyer approaching while holding the hatchet.
Johnson was hospitalized for three days and received 31 stitches after the attack. He said part of his head is permanently disfigured and he has had trouble sleeping since the incident.
Kelly’s lawyer, Robert Sheketoff, said Kelly has no history of violence and the attack was out of character for him.
