Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 12, 1993 TAG: 9311120238
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MANASSAS LENGTH: Medium
John Bobbitt has been acquitted of sexually assaulting his wife, and that might be the best thing you can say about a man whose own attorney said, "John may not be the most sensitive person" and "he is not the brightest guy in the world."
Lorena Bobbitt still faces trial Nov. 29 on a charge of malicious wounding for slicing off her husband's penis with a kitchen knife. The same prosecutors who presented her as a victim of John Bobbitt also described her as someone who is "not that bright" and who "committed a heinous act."
John Bobbitt's attorney, Gregory Murphy, said he thought it likely that Lorena Bobbitt would consider a plea bargain now that her credibility had been thrown into question by her husband's acquittal. Prosecutor Paul Ebert would not comment on those prospects. Her attorney has said she would plead temporary insanity.
Asked after the trial which Bobbitt came across as more deserving of sympathy, Ebert said, "I didn't think either one of them was very sympathetic."
But these are the same Bobbitts who have now joined Amy Fisher, Jessica Hahn and Heidi Fleiss, among others, as holders of that peculiarly American fame that clings to people who get in trouble because of sex.
All week, television cameras showed their comings and goings at the Prince William County Courthouse, Lorena looking regal in a long, cape-like purple coat, John striding purposefully in a dapper charcoal suit.
For emasculating her husband, at least briefly, Lorena Bobbitt has been splashed across the pages of Vanity Fair in a swimsuit and interviewed by Barbara Walters.
Movie offers are said to be pouring in. Gay Talese, who has chronicled The New York Times, the Mafia and America's sex habits, is writing about them.
In the age-old American tradition, notoriety has proved to be an equal-opportunity employer.
If glamour is one side of the Bobbitt story, pathos is the other.
On the witness stand, John Bobbitt was mumbling and indecisive, at times almost incoherent. In his first public comments about what had happened, he spoke in jerky, nervous mouthfuls of words and often appeared confused.
"I don't understand the question," he said several times, sometimes after not-too-deep questions.
Among his more memorable explanations for what happened that June night was that he might have had sex with his wife while he was asleep - something he frequently did.
"That's not true," prosecutor Mary Grace O'Brien told jurors. "People do not have sex when they're asleep!"
The 26-year-old ex-Marine is known as a man who is unable to hold a job, who was supporting himself at the time of the attack as an off-the-books manual laborer and as a bouncer at a bar.
Two young women who showed up as spectators at the trial described themselves as his friends and neighbors. Is he nice? they were asked.
"Yeah," one said offhandedly, "he works out."
Lorena Bobbitt, 24, appeared tiny and fragile and meek, a far cry from the castrating tigress who became a symbol for women fighting back against abuse. She trembled and sobbed as she spoke, and gulped nervously during pauses.
The story she told was hardly glamorous. The same day she attacked her husband - who, she said, had just raped her - she stole $100 and a Nintendo GameBoy from a house guest. This laid the basis for one of the trial's most enduring images: of Lorena Bobbitt fleeing her apartment while clutching a bloody knife and severed penis, along with her purse, the money and the game.
"How did you get out of the apartment?" she was asked.
"I opened the door."
Lorena Bobbitt, a manicurist born in Ecuador, also conceded that one of the first advisers she retained after the attack was a Hollywood talent company, which issued a statement - purportedly in her words - that extolled her vision of the American dream.
She was asked in court whether the agents had, in effect, put those words in her mouth.
"Sir, when I came to this beautiful country, I had a dream," Lorena Bobbitt said.
"Is that a `yes' answer?" the judge demanded.
"They did it," she said.
As for the couple's sex life, it hardly sounded glamorous, whether they were awake or asleep. John Bobbitt testified that they had sex daily, often waking each other when the urge struck. But he also described the act as requiring only about 15 minutes.
Asked about kissing his wife the night of the mutilation - five days after their fourth anniversary - John Bobbitt stuttered, "No - we, we, we hardly kiss at all."
In the TV movie, they'll kiss. Count on it.
by CNB