Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 13, 1993 TAG: 9308130244
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: MANASSAS LENGTH: Medium
"Once you get past the jokes and innuendo, it's a compelling personal tragedy," explained Allen Hauge of Paradise Entertainment Corp.
It is also a story that causes men to contort in primal discomfort and women to retort in feminist fury. Bloody Civil War battles were fought near here at Bull Run, said author Gay Talese, and "the Battle of the Bedroom is being fought here now."
On Capitol Hill, about 35 miles northeast of this historic village turned suburb, the federal budget dominated conversation this week. But at the Prince William County Courthouse, a media circus set up camp and the cut everyone was talking about had nothing to do with fiscal deficits.
The case has spawned a sort of "gender war," said Greg Murphy, the attorney for John Bobbitt, a 26-year-old former Marine whose penis was surgically reattached after his wife, Lorena, cut it off June 23 and threw it on a roadside.
Lorena Bobbitt said the attack was retribution for marital rape. John Bobbitt denies this charge, his attorney said.
Talese, on assignment from The New Yorker magazine, was joined by an army of TV cameras and townsfolk at the courthouse this week as the two central characters in this continuing drama made separate appearances.
Lorena Bobbitt sat silently through a preliminary hearing while a police officer read her account of how her husband fell asleep after 3 a.m. after forcing her to have sex with him. She recalled going into the kitchen for a glass of water.
"I was angry already, and the first thing I saw was the knife," she told police. "Then I pulled back the sheets, then I did it."
After the hearing in the Court of Domestic Relations, Judge Paul Gluchowski ruled there was enough evidence to send the case to a grand jury, which will decide whether to indict Lorena Bobbitt, 24, on charges of malicious wounding.
Meanwhile, John Bobbitt was arraigned on a charge of marital sexual assault. Each of the Bobbitts - they also are seeking to divorce each other - could receive a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
In this era of talk shows and docudramas, both the Bobbitts have retained publicists as well as attorneys.
Hauge, Lorena Bobbitt's agent, said negotiations are nearly complete for granting "a major TV personality" an exclusive interview with his client. He's not considering movie offers yet, although there have been some feelers from producers.
"We're not dealing with the exploitation shows like `A Current Affair,' although they've talked to us," he said.
Murphy said his client is not negotiating to sell his story to the tabloids, television or the movies. The publicist was retained mostly in the aftermath of the medical questions that arose, the lawyer said.
Apparently in a panic, Lorena Bobbitt took her husband's penis with her and drove away from their apartment after the attack, according to her statement to police. She threw it out the car window onto a grassy area beside the road. It was found there, put on ice, taken to the hospital and reattached during a nine-hour operation.
Murphy said progress is "slow" but that John Bobbitt's doctors are "cautiously optimistic" about his recovery, including the return of sexual function. It will take a couple of years for the nerves to regenerate, he said, so it's too early to predict what the extent of recovery will be.
The young couple lived in this sprawling suburban community when the attack occurred.
Lorena Bobbitt was born in Ecuador and reared in Venezuela. At 17, she visited the United States as a tourist and later returned as a student. She received a green card, enabling her to work as a legal alien, and would be close to becoming a U.S. citizen if this case had not arisen, said James Lowe, her attorney.
Lorena Bobbitt works as a nail sculptor.
John Bobbitt has worked at a variety of blue-collar jobs since his discharge from the Marines in 1991, said his attorney, Greg Murphy. The New York native has been a gardener at a landscape company, a restaurant kitchen worker and a bouncer at a bar.
The couple met when he was a Marine lance corporal stationed at Quantico. They married four years ago, after a 10-month courtship. Both lawyers agreed the relationship has been rocky and included several separations.
Lowe said Lorena Bobbitt was an abused wife and that self-defense will "certainly be one of our themes" in seeking to show her innocence.
Murphy said the evidence will show John Bobbitt is the victim - not the villain - in this strange case.
A trial date for John Bobbitt was set for Sept. 27. The grand jury will decide what happens next to Lorena Bobbitt.
by CNB