Ex assaulted me and the police and DA’s office messed up
criminal defense attorney New York Jul 24, 2026
Location: New York Hey everyone, I really need some advice on this if you can help me. Earlier this year, I was viciously assaulted by my ex, where he had cut up my arm, and I called the police and filed an order of protection against him, which was granted. When the police came over, they took photographs of my injured arm, and they called the ambulance to treat me. I declined going to the hospital because I did not think that I needed to because I wasn’t sure what they could even do with these cuts because they were pretty deep but I figured they probably did not require stitches so I did not go to the hospital. Because I did not go to the hospital and get a doctors note, New York State literally charged my ex with attempted assault in the third- degree rather than actual assault – the police officer told me today that because I did not go to the hospital to get my injuries checked out, I can’t do anything about this and I can’t have him charged with assault. Furthermore, the ADA that was working on my case notified me about two days after his arrest, and never informed me that she could not press charges for assault because I had not gone to the damned ER, and instead had charges filed for attempted assault in the third degree; one of the glaring differences with these two charges is that assault is a felony, whereas attempted assault is only a misdemeanor. This affects many things, for example, the order of protection I filed against him is only good for one year because he was charged only with a misdemeanor; had he been charged appropriately with a felony, they could’ve extended it from 5 to 8 years. They have just fucked up every which way they can on this case. I could never get a hold of this ADA, and she failed to tell me when or where or anything about the court process in regards to when my ex had to appear in court; because I was never given any notice whatsoever about when he was supposed to appear in court, of course, I never went, and I was never able to tell my side of the story to the courtroom. Because I was never notified of the court date, and because nobody ever told me that if you did not go to the actual hospital or an actual doctor to get your injuries looked at, the person couldn’t be charged with felony assault. Now my ex is filing a frivolous lawsuit against me in their town court because he knows he can get away with it, and they’re just letting him do it. He’s claiming that I owe him money that I’ve never borrowed from him, and he’s just doing this to be a pain in the ass because I had to move halfway across the country to get away from him, and he has told me that if I leave, and he cannot find me that he will drag me back to New York by any means necessary and physically harm me. I relayed this information to the court that he filed a small claims suit in, and the ADA’s office, but none of them seem to give a flying fuck. Do I have any legal recourse here for any of this? It does not seem fair that someone that physically assaulted me only gets charged with attempted assault because I just did not go to the hospital to get the injuries checked out – you would think the police and ambulance checking you out and taking photographs, and the ambulance treating my arm in the back of the truck would be sufficient enough to have an assault charge, but no, apparently in New York State that’s not sufficient. Additionally, when the ADA called me two days later, I feel like she should’ve informed me of this so that I could’ve gone to the hospital and gotten a note, and she should’ve also informed me of the court date, but she didn’t do either of these things. Whenever I’m trying to get a hold of her for various reasons, she has never responded – I had to literally end up calling her boss and emailing her boss as well to get her to fucking reply to me. This whole thing has been a cluster fuck, and no justice served. They said they can’t reopen the case and amend the charge because the case is already closed, so a person who threatened to kill me and murder suicide my family literally gets his record expunged within a year, and the order of protection only lasted for one year – they said the order protection could’ve lasted longer if he’d actually gotten charged with a felony – which is what assault is – but because he was only charged with attempted assault, they could only give him a misdemeanor, thus my stay away order is only good for one year. This is all bullshit. I need help, but I’m not gonna get it from the courts in NY, so does anybody have any advice as to where to begin? If they can’t reopen the case and amend the charges appropriately, given everything they’ve done wrong so far, would I have a potential civil suit against them? I understand that qualified immunity probably applies here, but when you’re this fucking incompetent in your job, is there a way to get around it?
