A judge has agreed to allow a Villager to have contact with a live-in lady friend he allegedly attacked earlier this year at his home in the Village of Pine Ridge.
A lawyer representing 74-year-old John Francis Bessette has persuaded Judge Lawrence Semento to modify a no-victim contact order allowing him to have “non-violent” contact with the woman he allegedly attacked.
Bessette had been arrested March 13 at his home at 831 Pisano Way after the woman contacted law enforcement. She said she and Bessette had been drinking and she went to take a shower. Bessette cornered her, grabbed both her wrists and struck her in the head with his hands, according to an arrest report from the Fruitland Park Police Department. When police arrived, she had fresh bruises above her left eye, on her cheek and on her nose, as well as a cut on her left wrist where her watch had broken her skin.
Police had been at the home an hour earlier because the couple was quarreling.
Bessette was verbally aggressive with police officers, repeatedly telling them to “get out of his house,” the report said.
Bessette was arrested on a charge of battery on a person over the age of 65. He has pleaded not guilty to that charge.
In 2016, Bessette was placed on one year of probation and ordered to perform 25 hours of community service after an incident in which a woman was pushed from his golf cart in The Villages.
