Man charged with Batesville shooting fires back with lawsuit

It’s said the best defense is a good offense.

Craig Thomas Handley appears to agree. The Batesville man has decided against sitting back and waiting for his criminal trial and filed a lawsuit against the man who got him charged with multiple offenses, including shooting from a motor vehicle.

"I know it sounds weird for a defense lawyer to say his client was the victim, but he truly was the victim," Handley’s lawyer August McCarthy told The Daily Progress.

Handley is suing the man he’s accused of shooting at for more than $1 million with claims of assault and emotional distress.

But that’s not how the other guy sees the events of Aug. 28. In a handwritten criminal complaint, Handley’s neighbor Nicholas Patrick Oppenheimer alleges that Handley was the evening’s aggressor.

"I heard shouting and yelling coming from below my house," Oppenheimer wrote in his sworn statement. "He is known in our neighborhood to carry a weapon with him."

Oppenheimer alleged that he heard Handley, sitting in an all-terrain vehicle, shouting in the driveway of a neighboring house shared by Oppenheimer’s ex-wife and her new husband.

"He was calling them New Mexico n—–s and thieves," Oppenheimer alleges.

By his own admission, Oppenheimer started ramming Handley’s ATV with his own motor vehicle "to get his attention."

By both men’s accounts, before the commotion ended, Handley had fired two shots from a handgun and, as he drove away, bumped into a vehicle with his ATV.

Initially charged with multiple offenses, including attempted malicious wounding, Handley was held without bail.

But Handley’s account of that evening, which he provided in the civil lawsuit he filed against Oppenheimer, tells a different story — beginning with his explanation for ending up in Oppenheimer’s ex-wife’s driveway.

"His intention was to talk to Patricia Oppenheimer in order to find out who had been stealing his aluminum cans," Handley wrote in the lawsuit filed Nov. 15 in Albemarle County Circuit Court. "He was on good terms with Patricia Oppenheimer."

The 73-year-old Handley attended one recent court proceeding in a wheelchair and another one walking with a limp and a cane. He says in his suit that his disability spurred him to remain seated in his ATV and honking his horn in hopes of summoning Patricia Oppenheimer.

That’s when Nicholas Oppenheimer began ramming the ATV, something Oppenheimer readily admits in his own narrative. The second hit from Oppenheimer’s sport utility vehicle, which Oppenheimer admits was a harder hit, was so jarring it knocked Handley out of his seat and into his ATV’s steering wheel, according to Handley.

"He feared that Oppenheimer, who has a volatile temper, was trying to kill him," Handley wrote.

Handley contends that he grabbed his gun only after that second strike from Oppenheimer’s vehicle and said he got the gun in hand in time for the third impact from Oppenheimer’s vehicle.

"I hit his 4×4 one more time to try and knock the firearm out of his hand," Oppenheimer wrote.

That third hit rattled Handley both physically and mentally, according to Handley.

"He was sure that Oppenheimer was determined to kill him," wrote Handley. "Handley’s fear was made worse by his own disability, by the fact that he could barely turn his body enough to see what was happening behind him."

Both men agree that Handley then fired two shots, but it’s there that their stories diverge. Oppenheimer says the shots were fired toward his vehicle; Handley says they were warning shots fired straight up in the air.

"Without the gun, he would have been helpless," Handley wrote about himself. "Luckily, it worked."

During a Dec. 4 bail hearing, Judge Cheryl Higgins read in a disapproving tone from Oppenheimer’s narrative, emphasizing Oppenheimer’s admission to being the first to wage a physical attack by ramming the ATV.

"While [Handley] may have been yelling, the law is clear that words are not sufficient to constitute assault," said Higgins.

Asked to provide bail, something she had rejected two weeks earlier, Higgins agreed to recommend HEI, or home electronic incarceration, for Handley. The judge said that a grand jury’s refusal, two days earlier, to certify a charge of attempted malicious wounding in favor of other charges was the deciding factor.

"I do think there is a difference between a charge that carries malice and one that does not carry malice," said Higgins.

At that same bail hearing, Handley’s thick gray and white beard seemed to confuse prosecutor Susan Baumgartner, who once referred to him, before correcting herself, as "Mr. Forbes." Baumgartner has also been prosecuting the case of Thomas Guy Forbes, who sports similar facial hair and who is preparing for a trial that starts next Tuesday on charges of shooting a woman in the face.

In another odd moment in the hearing, Baumgartner accused McCarthy, the defense lawyer, of untruthfulness so that a visitor could enjoy a longer stay with Handley.

"Mr. McCarthy lied to the jail about [the visitor] being his employee," said Baumgartner.

McCarthy denied the allegation in court, and when asked about it afterward told The Daily Progress that the visitor concocted the falsehood. Baumgartner declined to discuss the matter.

Baumgartner and McCarthy also sparred over something Handley said in a taped jail telephone call: "This is war."

While Baumgartner suggested the statement was indicative of violence, McCarthy suggested a more benign motivation for the man whose only prior criminal conviction is a charge of driving under the influence.

"He’s got a gruff demeanor," said McCarthy. "’This is war’ can be reasonably thought of as a legal argument; he’s using legal means to get back."

The two felony counts that the grand jury certified for Handley are discharging a firearm from a vehicle and the use of a firearm in a felony. He also faces misdemeanor counts of brandishing, reckless handling of a gun and hit-and-run.

The judge ordered Handley to stay away from Oppenheimer until the two-day trial set to begin Feb. 27.

"This is so clearly self-defense," McCarthy said. "You don’t get to run into people."

Reached by telephone, Oppenheimer declined to speak about the situation.

Source: www.dailyprogress.com