Donald Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, pictured, is facing a misdemeanor battery charge for allegedly grabbing a reporter. | AP Photo Is Trump's campaign manager guilty? ‘You have the most corroborating evidence I’ve seen in a battery case in a long time,’ a veteran Florida defense attorney says.

Despite Donald Trump’s insistence that it’s a flimsy case, the battery charge against his campaign manager is straightforward for Florida prosecutors, according to independent attorneys and a reading of state statute.

The strength of the allegations against Corey Lewandowski revolve around multiple factors that most simple battery cases don’t have: video, audio and eye-witness evidence that indicates he grabbed reporter Michelle Fields by the arm and yanked her out of Trump’s way without her permission.


The wording of Florida statute, 784.03 (1) (a) (1), cited by the Jupiter police officer who charged Lewandowski on Tuesday, is also broad and clear when it comes to the charge: “The offense of battery occurs when a person… Actually and intentionally touches or strikes another person against the will of the other.”

For veteran defense attorney Elizabeth L. Parker, the letter of the law and the wealth of evidence against Lewandowski make this a tough case for him to defend if prosecutors decide to pursue it.

“You have the most corroborating evidence I’ve seen in a battery case in a long time,” said Parker, who supervised battery cases from 2003-2011 as a prosecutor in Palm Beach County, where the incident occurred.

“It’s not often you get a crime caught on tape. Most battery cases are he-said, she-said. And the police come and the police make a determination. And prosecutors look to see if there’s any corroborating evidence. Are there any injuries? Any independent witnesses? – things like that,” Parker said. “And here we have all of that…. Again, it’s very rare, and it’s a very prosecutable case.”

An attorney for Lewandowski, Scott N. Richardson, said his client was innocent. Trump said there was “nothing there.”

“I’m sticking up for a person because I’m not gonna let a person’s life be destroyed over somebody that we have on tape, and you just take a look at what people are saying when they see that incident on tape,” Trump told reporters during a 25-minute news conference while aboard his plane on Tuesday. “No jury, in my opinion, no jury would convict a man and destroy a man’s life over what you witnessed.”

Katie S. Phang, a Miami attorney with the powerhouse Berger Singerman firm, questioned whether Lewandowski should press his luck.

"If the State Attorney's Office files this charge, and Lewandowski pushes this case to trial, he better hope that a 'jury of his peers' drinks the Trump Kool-Aid, too. Because if they don't, he just might be convicted," Phang said.

The incident, which occurred March 8 at the Trump National Golf Club, was witnessed by Washington Post reporter Ben Terris, who said he saw Lewandowski yank Fields, then a reporter for Breitbart News, as she tried to ask Trump a question after his news conference. In an audio recording of the incident played for Jupiter Police Officer Marc Bujnowski, Fields and Terris expressed surprise with Lewandowski’s rough treatment.

Bujnowski, noting Fields showed him bruises on her arm, also obtained surveillance video from the golf club that corroborated the reporters’ story and cast doubt on Lewandowski’s claim that he never touched or saw Fields.

Whether the case gets prosecuted, however, is another matter.

Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg has yet to receive the case from the Jupiter Police Department and couldn’t comment on it, said spokesman Mike Edmondson. He said the police officer made a determination to charge based on “probable cause” that a crime occurred. But, he said, prosecutors have to decide two extra factors before bringing the case: “if the state can meet its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt and if there’s a reasonable likelihood of conviction before moving forward with a charge.”

Miami-Dade criminal defense attorney Patrick J. McGeehan said that, while the evidence indicates there was a battery, the prosecutors might not push the case because it might not be a slam dunk. In reviewing the video footage, McGeehan said, there’s a possibility that prosecutors could consider how aggressively Fields pursued Trump as she tried to question him.

A former Miami police officer, McGeehan said an officer would normally make a simple battery charge in a low-profile case involving private citizens who, say, got in a fight in a bar.

“But if you, me and Donald Trump get in a fist fight in a parking lot, they’re going to take it to the state attorney and go ‘hey, what should we do with this?’ At least that’s been my experience in Dade County and I was a policeman for 22 years,” McGeehan said.

As for the underlying charge, McGeehan and Parker were in clear agreement: “Battery? Yeah,” he said. “Under the statute – under the broad statute – yeah: Battery.”

