It is an ugly, high-stakes case of she said, he said.
Either a Massachusetts state trooper brutalized his girlfriend, holding her captive and threatening her with knives — or the alleged victim made up the story after discovering he was using dating apps to meet other women.
Plymouth County authorities believe the alleged victim, a Barnstable police officer; the trooper’s lawyer is equally convinced her tale is untrue.
Joseph Robert Ward, 25, of Plymouth, assigned to the Bourne barracks, was relieved of duty and placed on unpaid leave immediately upon his arrest, according to a State Police spokeswoman.
He pleaded not guilty Jan. 28 in Plymouth District Court on charges of kidnapping, aggravated witness intimidation, assault and battery on a household member, and two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon.
He was ordered held at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility until a hearing on Feb. 2, when he was released with conditions. Judge John Canavan ordered Ward to wear a GPS monitoring bracelet, live with his mother in Methuen and stay out of Plymouth and Barnstable counties.
“Joe absolutely denies the allegations,” his attorney, Gregory Henning, said in a statement.
“Local law enforcement arrested him based entirely on an interview with the accuser, 18 days after the alleged event, which she refused to have recorded. There was no corroboration or even an attempt to verify her claims before police put him in handcuffs.”
The alleged victim, a Barnstable police officer, told police Ward, her live-in boyfriend, had abused her physically and emotionally for years.
She finally went to Plymouth police after an alleged incident so harrowing her legs buckled, she blacked out, and thought she was going to die, police wrote.
In the Plymouth police report, Sgt. Brendan Rix described how the woman showed up at 3:25 a.m. on Jan. 28 “visibly distraught with tears in her eyes.”
She described an episode on Jan. 10.
She told him Ward had become agitated and manic when she told him she was planning to break up with him. But she was scheduled to report for a midnight shift at the Barnstable police department and it wasn’t the right time for that conversation, she said.
She told police when she refused to call in sick, Ward locked her in their apartment and wouldn’t let her leave.
She pleaded with him, the woman said, but he wouldn’t back down.
She packed a bag and texted an emergency contact for help, police wrote.
When Ward saw her texting, she told police, “he began to snap.” He threw furniture and grabbed her, shoving her backwards onto the couch and onto the floor multiple times, she alleged.
He came at her with six kitchen knives, she said, three in each hand.
She said she was so overcome with fear, her legs gave out and she was “afraid he was finally going to kill her,” Rix wrote.
She blacked out and was “unable to see due to the overwhelming fear she was placed in,” Rix wrote.
While she was on the ground, Ward retrieved a handgun from a safe and loaded it, she alleged. When he told her she couldn’t leave, Ward allegedly berated her for being afraid, she told police.
At some point he became distracted, she said, and tried to flee.
Ward “chased her down, tackled her in the hallway, dragged her back into the apartment by her legs, closed and locked the door once she was inside,” police wrote.
Ward, afraid a neighbor might call police, demanded they go for a drive, the report said. She noticed her emergency contact in a vehicle behind her. They pulled over and that person intervened, she told police.
The next day, Jan. 11, the woman moved out of their shared apartment and said she’s had no contact with him since. She told police she still lived in “constant fear” he will find out her new address.
But in a motion urging the judge to free Ward, Henning argued the couple remained on good terms and kept seeing and speaking to each other after Jan. 10.
Henning produced text messages between them and a surveillance screenshot of them shopping at Walmart on Jan 17. He was, according to Henning, helping her furnish her new apartment.
Between Jan. 17 and 21, Henning said, they also ate out together, had sex and attended a yoga class.
“The accuser’s interactions with the defendant are too significant to pass off as something she forgot to mention to police,” Henning wrote. “Given the materiality of this intentional deceit, the court should consider the accuser’s allegations entirely unreliable.”
At a hearing Monday, Plymouth County Assistant District Attorney Jordan Temples urged the judge to give the text messages ‘little to no weight,” according to published reports.
“The text messages, these accusations of them hanging out afterwards, I think that actually helps make the case for us,’ she said, arguing that Ward was “so controlling and so manipulative that she had no choice but to do what she thought could keep her safe.”
By Jan. 24, Henning wrote, Ward knew the relationship wasn’t salvageable and he started reaching out to other women on dating apps. Several women began following him on Instagram, an account Henning suggested the alleged victim could access.
He told several people he planned to meet one of the women in Boston’s North End on Jan. 30.
But before he could keep the appointment, Ward was arrested.
He is due back in court on April 16.
If convicted of aggravated witness intimidation, Ward faces of up to 20 years in state prison. If found guilty of kidnapping, he could receive a sentence of up to 10 years. The other charges carry lesser penalties.
Andrea Estes can be reached at andrea@plymouthindependent.org.