Charges have been dropped against a woman who attacked White House top aide, Kellyanne Conway.
The Maryland woman, Mary Elizabeth Inabinett, 63, was originally charged with assaulting White House counselor Kellyanne Conway during a confrontation last year at a restaurant in a Washington suburb. Inabinett’s trial was scheduled to start Monday morning in Montgomery County, Maryland. Instead, a county prosecutor asked a judge to dismiss the charges.
Police had charged Inabinett last November with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct.
Conway declined to comment on the dismissal.
According to Fox News, Conway had told police she was attending a birthday party with her teenage daughter at a Mexican restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland, last October when she felt somebody grab her shoulders from behind and shake her. The woman who confronted Conway yelled, “Shame on you” and “other comments believed to be about Conway’s political views,” according to a charging document prepared by Montgomery County police.
“No Injuries”
According to the court documents, Conway suffered no injuries in the incident.
Montgomery County prosecutor Kathy Knight said Inabinett sent Conway a letter apologizing for the incident. “She has apologized for choosing this time and place to vent her political views,” Knight said. “That was inappropriate.”
Knight noted Inabinett had never been arrested for a crime before.
Ramon Korionoff, a spokesman for the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office said dropping the charges is “the best resolution for this particular set of circumstances.”
Maraya Pratt, an attorney for Inabinett, said Monday that she couldn’t immediately comment. Another attorney for Inabinett, William Alden McDaniel, Jr., said in a statement in February that his client didn’t assault Conway and was merely exercising her right to express her personal opinions about a public figure in a public place.
While Conway did not comment on the dismissal, in an earlier interview with CNN after the incident, she said she was standing next to her middle school-aged daughter and some of her daughter’s friends when the woman began shaking her “to the point where I thought maybe somebody was hugging me.” She said it felt “weird” and “a little aggressive,” so she turned around to face the woman.
“She was just unhinged. She was out of control,” she said. “Her whole face was terror and anger.”
According to the Associated Press, the restaurant’s manager told police the woman who confronted Conway had to be forcibly removed from the premises. Conway told police the woman yelled and gestured at her for 8 to 10 minutes before she was escorted out of the restaurant. Conway’s daughter provided officers with a short video clip and photograph of the encounter.
Tired of people thinking they can verbally “assault” (and in this case “physically assault”) others just because they are in public spaces. This is not behavior that should be accepted by anyone – regardless of political affiliations.
This should be prosecuted. In my mind, this is not protected free speach and infringes on the rights of anyone who is attacked in this way.
Political views should never be a reason for assaults…our universities are producing this kind of radical thought. Even politicians have said truly unacceptable things – on both sides of the political fence. It is shameful.
Differing opinions will always exist. Assaulting people over those differences will not have the desired affect of changing minds. It will only result in more unacceptable similar behaviors and potential further violence. It is long past time to prosecute such behavior. Failure to do so encourages other people with radical personal beliefs to act out their unhinged disappointment in public.
If you disagree with someone’s political views…that’s understandable. Write your representative, write an editorial piece in your newspaper, become politically active in a professional way – but never scream at or physically harm others….ever! ….publically or privately.