As Cape Coral's mayor, Marni Sawicki often seemed embroiled in controversy, bruised and battered, she says, by not only her former husband, but the public she represented.

Now her pain has become her cause.

"I'm not hiding anymore," she said as her days serving the public wind down. She anticipates focusing on her public relations business and advocating for domestic violence victims, as well as those suffering sexual harassment and assault.

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence estimates nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner.

With the mayoral election next week, Sawicki gives up her seat Nov. 20. But the past four years have been fraught with emotional upheaval that she said she hoped to avoid bringing to the office that represents 185,000 people in one of the nation's fastest-growing cities.

Her very public, dysfunctional relationship with now-retired Cape Coral fire Lt. Kenneth D. Retzer stole headlines:

"Cape Coral mayor marries man she had restraining order against"

"Update: Cape mayor responds to 'domestic disturbance' report"

"Cape Coral mayor and husband file for divorce"

"Judge issues protection order for Cape Coral mayor"

MORE: Judge awards protection order

In June, it came to a head. Sawicki and her two children and their friends, as well as Retzer, attended the 85th annual meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors in Miami Beach.

Early June 24, as the mayor's conference entered its second day, Retzer and Sawicki got into a fight. She recorded about 12 minutes of their 20-plus minute battle in the room at Fontainebleau Hotel.

The police report and recording indicate that he choked her. He hit her. She scratched him. He threatened her. She bit him. He called her names. He called 911.

"I tried to stand up to him," she said. "He instantly had me in a headlock, (saying) 'You want to fight me, you want to fight me?' There's nothing I could do in that situation."

Her children and their friends, meanwhile, were texting each other. Her 18-year-old son was begging his sister to intervene as she rushed back to the hotel; the sister was encouraging her brother to barge into the adjoining hotel room and confront Retzer.

MORE: Mayor's ex arrested in assault

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With the recording as evidence, police arrested Retzer. Sawicki declined medical treatment, something she said she regrets. She said she was unable to make sound decisions immediately following the altercation.

Sawicki's daughter, Madisson, 20, launched into a protective mode hours after the altercation. She said she heard Retzer knock on the adjoining room hours after the police had taken their statements. Someone tried to close the door linking the rooms.

"I jumped out of bed and put my foot in between so it couldn't shut and told him he needed to leave," she said. "... I was so angry I picked up a bottle of sunscreen and held it up telling him to get out. I wasn't scared, just furious. My mom was in no condition to help herself."

Sawicki had already announced, in March, that she wouldn't run for re-election. But she stayed at the conference, attended meetings and networked, with heavy makeup caked over her newly blackened eye. She said she also suffered a small concussion.

Remaining silent

Retzer declined comment for this story through his lawyer, Ray De La Cabada, of Miami.

"As counsel on his case, I’m advising him of his right to remain silent," De La Cabada said. "I'm sorry we can not provide a comment at this time."

In Lee County, Retzer is due in court at 8:30 a.m. Nov. 21 relating to a protection order. It has been delayed twice, once in July and again in September.

In Miami Beach, the next hearing on the felony battery charge is Dec. 18. He remains free on $7,000 bond.

Sawicki's friend, Palm Bay Mayor William Capote, was at the hotel for the conference and was with Sawicki and Retzer the day prior to the altercation.

"I was completely shocked," he said of learning about the assault.

"If you see the video — wow!," he said. "You're like, 'This is the guy I was just with the day before? This is that guy?' Man, I was like if you don't see it on film, you wouldn't believe it."

The News-Press viewed the tape and deemed it too profane and disturbing to share, despite Sawicki's willingness to share it.

Capote listened to the tape just hours after it was made. He saw Sawicki's fresh bruises. He heard her raspy voice and her struggle to talk. He walked her to seminars. He checked on her children.

"I was being a friend," he said, "a friend to a person I've known now for four years. And friends deserve better than that. Nobody deserves — male or female — deserves to be in a situation like that."

With the support of her children and Capote, Sawicki wrapped up the final two days of the conference.

"... it was hard getting her to eat or drink anything, so I kept bringing her food and water throughout the day and trying to get her to eat," Madisson Sawicki said. "She couldn't eat anything because she said everything tasted like tinfoil. We later learned that's normal when you get hit in the face."

Coming home

Caught up in getting through each moment, Sawicki said she doesn't remember how she got through the conference but did her job.

Still, she had to return home, where some friends didn't want to talk about the issue and the public was making judgments, further isolating her.

John Davis, a reporter and morning edition host for WGCU-FM, is also an abuse survivor. He composed an email detailing some of his abuse as he asked her to appear on "Gulf Coast Live!" in the days following Retzer's June arrest.

"It's personal to me," Davis said. "Physically and psychologically, abuse was common to me growing up. We would hide out for days so our abuser couldn't find us. I talked about a couple of other instances. Mostly, I sat there with that email (asking her to appear) for a long time before I hit that send button."

He knew how difficult it would be to talk publicly, but he also understood how knowing of others suffering could have changed how his family weathered the brutality.

"I can't help but think that if there had been brave community leaders like yourself willing to speak openly about their experiences, then perhaps people ... would not have stayed with their abusers for so many years before finally getting help and getting out," he wrote.

Sawicki went on his show, talking in generalities about domestic assault.

Public reaction

A target of online baiting, Sawicki is the subject of a post on shesahomewrecker.com, called out on Facebook and other social media, and had angry emails sent to her.

While she was in office she was accused of having an affair with a married man.

"My biggest supporters are women, and my biggest haters are women," she said.

In the video Sawicki took of the Miami abuse, Retzer repeatedly calls her a "whore."

Some members of the public took to the internet, repeating the epithet.

"I will be honest, if we, as a council, had been able to focus less on the personal life and more on the stuff we could accomplish as a team, we would be further along," she said.

After the June abuse arrest, an anonymous person reported her to the Department of Children and Families.

"Somebody felt the need to call DCF and report me so that it added trauma on top of trauma," Sawicki said, saying the Miami Beach police had talked to both children and had determined they were OK.

She called the experience "torture."

"She's been through a lot," Madisson Sawicki said about her mother, " — more than anyone should have to be put through: from him, the media and the people who know nothing about her but choose to write and say hateful things."

The vitriol has stunned even those somewhat accustomed to it.

"I've never seen a mayor or any elected official drilled like she has been," Capote said.

Davis, too, is saddened by the venom.

"Sometimes the scrutiny of the public eye can be callous," he said. "Anybody can comment on anything with almost total anonymity and be cruel."

It's the lack of empathy that Sawicki wrestles with.

"The ones that speak about 'why did she go back', there's either such a lack of empathy or they just don't grasp it at all," she said. "Maybe it is so horrible, they can't comprehend that they would ever go through that. It just hurts."

Sawicki said she can't answer why she stayed, but it's part of the abusive cycle of using physical violence, harmful language, social standing, technology, intimidating, minimizing and blaming, threats, sexual assault or harassment and coercion.

"The person I see on that video and hear, I don't even recognize my voice," she said. "I don't know who she is."

Driving anger

The case in Lee County has been delayed several times. And she will appear in Miami-Dade County for the case against Retzer in December, but anticipates a continuance.

Her children have pledged they will make the trip with her to Miami every time. That 80-mile stretch of Alligator Alley is etched into their minds.

Fleeing the abuse, Sawicki feared Retzer would be waiting for her along the four-lane remote stretch of highway as they returned to Cape Coral.

The two-hour drive home, she had the four young adults, and they talked about domestic abuse, and how she hoped they would recognize the signs.

"My actions haven't always necessarily backed my words," she said she told them. "... I started crying again. I put them in harm's way without realizing it. I told them I choose them every day of the week."

Madisson Sawicki said time will prove those words, and the family is closer after facing the public scrutiny and abuse together.

"I was angry because he was released without a GPS and we didn't know where he was, and I was angry my mom seemed so scared," she said.

Sawicki, a child survivor of abuse, as well as a rape survivor, has been a volunteer with Abuse Counseling & Treatment in Fort Myers for years. The agency serves Southwest Florida. Now, she's been a client, undergoing four months of weekly treatment since the Miami incident.

"She's stronger now," Madisson Sawicki said. "She's been going to therapy and taking the time to stay home and just get better."

Davis advised others to find similar help.

"If you are in a safe position to do so, come forward," he said. "Get help if you need help. And if in a position of influence or power, wield that in a way that will encourage other victims to do the same."

Capote said with three years remaining on his mayoral term, he can help Sawicki work on legislation related to sexual abuse and assault. They will meet after her term ends to hammer out details.

She hopes to have the U.S. Conference of Mayors convene a caucus.

"I'd love to see the conference take on sexual assault, harassment and domestic violence," she said. "... We're in the best position to talk about this. We're in the best position to help people locally."

She said those people who wrote to share similar experiences remind her that her voice matters.

"It makes you want to help them, do more for them," she said.

The videotape has made all the difference, she said, and when she feels weak, she watches it again.

"I'm angry; I'm still angry. ... It's more about, I still have to go on," Sawicki said. "It's not about him any longer, just about me and my healing and those around me. And doing what we can to make sure that one, people know the signs, and two, they know they're not alone."

Getting help

Cape Coral Mayor Marni Sawicki, a domestic assault victim, hopes to help others find the help and resources they need to leave abusive relationships.

"It's almost too horrible to talk about," she said, saying there's a taboo of acknowledging abuse.

She turned to Abuse Counseling and Treatment of Fort Myers, which helps abuse victims across Southwest Florida with access to lawyers, counseling and financial assistance to help remove them from their situations.

If you or someone you know is an abusive situation, you may reach ACT at 239-939-3112.