Did Barisone remember the shooting? Experts disagree

by Nancy Jaffer | Apr 7, 2022

Michael Barisone had “interpersonal problems” and “a longstanding conflict” with student Lauren Kanarek and her boyfriend, Robert Goodwin, in Florida during the winters of 2018 and 2019, according to Dr. Louis Schlesinger, a psychology professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who was a rebuttal witness for the prosecution today in the dressage trainer’s attempted murder trial.

Psychologist Louis Schlesinger makes a point during Barisone’s trial. (Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)

Since the combo of Kanarek and her partner wasn’t a match made in heaven for Barisone, why did he let them come back to his Hawthorne Hill Farm in Washington Township, N.J., for the fateful summer of 2019, when Kanarek was shot?

“He said he needed money,” explained Schlesinger, noting that it cost Barisone $36,000 a month to run his business. The 2008 U.S. Olympic dressage team alternate told Schlesinger everyone in the horse business has to deal with difficult clients, so he lived with it. Kanarek was paying $5,000 monthly board for two horses, although she had several other mounts, one of which she bought from Barisone for $30,00 or $40,000; the amount stated has varied.

At the same time, Goodwin was doing some construction and tileing in the farmhouse on the property where they lived and elsewhere on the farm, but he wanted to be paid for his work. Barisone had been trying to get the couple to leave his farm, and was moving ahead with eviction procedures.

This was the final afternoon of testimony in the trial that has lasted nine days in Morristown, N.J., with attorneys set to sum up and the jury getting the case next Monday. We finally got some answers to questions that have arisen as Superior Court Judge Stephen Taylor presided, but were left open-ended due to objections that were sustained or otherwise not permitted. You can’t appreciate the intricacies of the rules of evidence until you see how many “sidebars” are called, where the lawyers move to the bench to discuss various issues in low voices with the judge.

Michael Barisone confers with his attorney, Edward Bilinkas. (Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)

Schlesinger, who has worked for government agencies including the FBI and the Morris County Prosecutor’s office, with which he is presently involved in another case, was called by the prosecution to comment on the testimony of the expert witnesses for the defense.

They are a psychiatrist and another psychologist, who discussed Barisone’s mental state. A psychiatrist is a physician who can prescribe medicine; a psychologist is a PhD who specializes in the study of mind and behavior or in treatment of mental, emotional, and behavioral issues.

The psychiatrist, Dr. Steven Simring, yesterday said Barisone–who had been seeing a therapist on and off for 20 years–suffered from delusional disorder and also was dealing with persistent depressive disorder.

Barisone stated he couldn’t remember the incident in which he is charged with shooting Kanarek twice, resulting in her stay of nearly three weeks in Morristown Medical Center’s intensive care unit.

Simring said being hit on the head with a phone by Goodwin “is probably the most likely reason Barisone lost memory,” noting he suffered several injuries on his head, including a hematoma behind his ear. Dr. Charles Hasson, the defense team’s psychologist, mentioned Barisone had many head injuries over the years, a not-unfamiliar scenario for equestrians.

Defense psychologist Dr. Charles Hasson. (Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)

Schlesinger, however, was skeptical about Barisone’s memory loss, noting it came after the attack, when Goodwin punched the trainer and then held him down on the ground until the police came.

Defense attorney Edward Bilinkas is pursuing a joint insanity and self-defense strategy, so the psychology experts are key to judging Barisone’s mental state.

Defense attorney Edward Bilinkas. (Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)

Schlesinger discussed malingering in terms of feigning or faking an illness, motivated by criminal prosecution.

He said it is something that is “strongly suspected” if an individual is referred by an attorney when charges are pending.

The fact that Barisone remembered what happened prior to the shooting and afterward, but not the incident itself is “a red flag. Why isn’t everything blacked out?” Schlesinger wondered.

He maintained, “There’s no memory disorder that is selective just for criminal conduct. So what does he not remember? Lauren comes out (of the farmhouse) and then he has no memory for anything else until he wakes up in the hospital with a big light on him.”

When something like that happens, Schlesinger suggested, “the first thing you say is `Where the hell am I? Why am I here?’ He didn’t say that.”

Schlesinger mentioned dissociative amnesia “that can occur in a trauma, so I considered that.”

But he added, “I don’t think that is correct. I think this is malingered amnesia” noting it is “very common in criminal cases.” He observed, “There is no memory disorder that is selective just for criminal conduct.”

Although Barisone owned several guns, the weapon used in the shooting was a pink and black 9 mm Ruger belonging to Ruth Cox, who co-owned horses at the farm. She would travel up from North Carolina to visit with a gun in her car because she was concerned for her safety while traveling.

Barisone asked her for the gun after she arrived in early August and put it in his office safe because “he felt it wasn’t safe in the car with Lauren there,” Schlesinger reported.

“Does it show anything with respect to whether he know or appreciates the nature and quality of his actions,” asked Morris County Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Schellhorn.

Morris County Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Schellhorn and Assistant Prosecutor Alex Bennett.( Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)

When Cox arrived on Aug. 2, 2019, “The gun was in a case and the ammunition was not loaded,” the psychologist said. But the gun was out of the case and loaded when Barisone drove to the farmhouse where the confrontation with Kanarek and Goodwin took place on Aug. 7, 2019.

Schlesinger commented on “Michael’s belief that Kanarek was going to kill him, Mary Haskins (his former girlfriend) and her children.”

He said, “It’s not delusional, it’s based on what was going on at the time.” He noted that Haskins felt their lives were in danger and thought Kanarek’s father, Jonathan, was going to kill her.

But Schlesinger contended that had nothing to do with the shooting. Instead, he maintained it was sparked when an investigator from the Division of Child Protection and Permanency came to the farm to speak with Mary Haskins, who, like Barisone feared the children would be taken from her.

“Who wouldn’t be upset if he incorrectly thought Lauren called Child Protection?  She didn’t, but that’s what he thought,” said Schlesinger.

“My understanding is that SafeSport called DCPP.”

However, earlier in the trial, it was brought out that Kanarek had twice looked up the anonymous reporting number for DCPP.

Drs. Hasson and Schlesinger disagreed on methodology involving a series of psychological tests, which left a question mark on which accurately assessed Barisone’s mental condition.

The issue, according to the judge “is what’s in the defendant’s mind.”

Barisone gets a psychiatric diagnosis

by Nancy Jaffer | Apr 6, 2022

An increasingly panicked and desperate Michael Barisone was trying to get help as his life was spinning out of control, a psychiatrist testified today in the dressage trainer’s trial on attempted murder and weapon charges.

The expert witness, Dr. Steven Simring, concluded Barisone suffered not only from delusional disorder but also was dealing with persistent depressive disorder, noting he had been seeing a therapist for years.

Dr. Steven Simring holds up a report given to him by Michael Barisone, part of his stack of papers that includes police reports and Facebook postings. (Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)

Barisone, the 2008 U.S. Olympic Dressage Team alternate, is charged with shooting his student, Lauren Kanarek, who was a tenant in his farmhouse with her boyfriend, Robert Goodwin. He was trying to get them to leave his Hawthorne Hill farm in Washington Township, N.J.’s Long Valley section, and obsessed over Kanarek’s social media postings. He believed she was destroying his life and planned to kill him.

That fear changed him from “a remarkable guy” and “a fantastic horseman,” as Olympic eventer Boyd Martin put it, to a deeply troubled shadow of himself,.

Martin took the stand before Judge Stephen Taylor in Superior Court, Morristown, N.J., to testify about how Barisone was viewed in the equestrian community.

“He was one of those people you are drawn to, larger than life,” said Martin. He recalled how Barisone was so dedicated he would leave New Jersey before dawn to get to Martin’s Windurra Farm in Pennsylvania, arriving before the eventer was even out of bed in order to get ready to train him.

As happened yesterday when fellow eventer Phillip Dutton testified, the subject of a barn fire at a stable Martin was renting in 2011 came up. Six horses died in the blaze, caused by a faulty hay steamer.

Defense attorney Chris Deininger asked Martin, if had he been at the barn that night and noticed the machine was faulty,  “would you have done something to address it?”

Boyd Martin is sworn in as a witness in the Barisone trial. (Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)

Martin was not allowed to answer after the prosecution objected. The question related to Robert Goodwin’s agitation about a dryer that wouldn’t turn off in Barisone’s stable in 2019. Outside court, several people mentioned they had wondered why Goodwin just didn’t unplug the dryer if he was upset about it.

Most of the morning was taken up with testimony by Simring. Under questioning by lead defense attorney Edward Bilinkas, the doctor noted, “Mr. Barisone was trying everything within his power to stop the relationship between him, Kanarek and Goodwin. He wanted them off his property. They didn’t want to leave. They claim they had a right to be there.

“Mr. Barisone said he was scared to death of Lauren Kanarek.”

The trainer “became increasingly desperate, because he saw himself in a situation in which he was being physically threated by Lauren Kanarek and Robert Goodwin. He felt trapped. He felt there was no way out. He was afraid he’d be killed and wanted to defend himself.”

He noted that Barisone also was upset about having his conversations recorded after he found things he had said privately being quoted on Facebook. He hired a company to sweep his property to find the bugs.

The psychiatrist sat behind an eight-inch-high stack of papers, which included 19,000 of Kanarek’s Facebook posts that had intimidated Barisone, as well as various police reports and other items relating to the case, including a 91-page report assembled by his patient.

Simring spoke with therapist Ann Picardo, whom Barisone had seen for 20 years when she treated him for depression and anxiety.

Michael Barisone talks with Patrick DeFranciso in court. (Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)

“I learned from her he came from a family which was emotionally and physically abusive. One of the maternal grandparents suffered from depression,” said Simring, noting he believed that person had required shock treatment.

“Depression runs in families,” said Simring, noting Picardo described Barisone as “very troubled” and “thought he was at considerable risk for suicide,” even before the incident. He told the therapist that he “had lost everything.”

Simring commented that as Barisone’s disturbance grew, “everyone noticed he was no longer the same person.”

While Barisone remembered what had led up to the shooting and what happened afterward, he couldn’t remember the incident itself, Simring said.

“One of the things seemed to be that Robert Goodwin hit him on the head with a cellphone and that is probably the most likely reason he lost memory,” the psychiatrist said, commenting that Barisone suffered a hematoma behind his ear and other injuries.

Dr. Charles Hasson, a psychologist, also testified today, noting Barisone was emotionally unstable and had researched getting assisted suicide in Switzerland in 2015.

Hasson had Barisone do a battery of tests, which showed among other things he scored very high in paranoia and anxiety. He was “very prone to making idiosyncratic deductions,” combining them “in a way that doesn’t make sense.”

He noted that over the years, Barisone had eight to 12 concussions and a skull fracture. People who ride often suffer concussions when they fall off.

Noting how frightened he was of Kanarek and Goodwin, Hasson quoted Barisone as saying, “these are dangerous people” and worried about the fate of the horses at his farm and the children of his then-girlfriend, Mary Haskens Gray, if something happened to him.

The day ended with Morris County Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Chris Schellhorn doing a back-and-forth with Hasson about the validity of his testing process and mentioning that “feigned amnesia is found more frequently in individuals with legal problems.”

UPDATE: Testimony about Barisone’s mental state came from high-profile riders on the seventh day of his trial

by Nancy Jaffer | Apr 5, 2022

(There is a correction in the 15th paragraph)

Just days before the shooting of Lauren Kanarek, wheels were in motion to have her leave dressage trainer Michael Barisone’s farm, where testimony in his attempted murder trial revealed the atmosphere had become poisonous.

Kanarek, who came to Barisone for training in 2018 and lived in his farmhouse with her boyfriend, Robert Goodwin, had refused to depart his Hawthorne Hill stable in the Long Valley section of Washington Township when he asked her to leave. She had contended it was difficult to locate a stable that could take her five horses.

But Barisone’s lawyer, Steven Tarshis, had negotiated in July and early August with her father, Jonathan Kanarek, and found a comparable stable in the area that would take her, according to testimony today in Superior Court, Morristown, N.J.

“I believed we had an understanding,” said Tarshis, who was looking for a non-judicial way to get her to go elsewhere, though he noted Kanarek didn’t leave.

Michael Barisone’s personal attorney, Steve Tarshis. (Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)

On Aug. 5, a letter demanding she get off the property was delivered to Kanarek by email. She was served with a complaint, but it had never been filed.

“Michael did not want to start eviction, he wanted to scare her into leaving,” Tarshis said.

“So we suggested serving her with the papers, but not filing them, hoping this alone would give her the impetus to honor the agreement we thought we had.”

He mentioned the atmosphere at the farm was “getting worse and worse almost by the day,” and wondered how reports of personal private conversations he had with Barisone appeared on social media.There had been testimony about secret recordings earlier in the trial.

Seeing the conversations posted publicly “was really disturbing,” he said, noting the only way Kanarek could have heard them was to be in the room while they were talking, but she wasn’t.

Fate conspired against a solution when a caseworker from the state Division of Child Permancy and Protection arrived on Aug. 7, 2019, to talk to Barisone’s girlfriend at the time, Mary Haskens Gray, the mother of two.

Barisone went into his office, where the caseworker and Gray were meeting, and asked them to leave. The office was where he kept a 9mm Ruger pistol in the safe. Then he drove to the farmhouse and Kanarek wound up with two bullet holes in her chest.

During the trial, it was revealed that she had looked up the number for the division’s hotline on her phone, but it has not been made clear yet who notified the agency.

Yesterday, Morris County Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Schellhorn quoted firefighter/paramedic Daniel Vitale, who treated Barisone after he was involved in a struggle with Goodwin following the shooting. Vitale said Barisone told him,  “Someone drove down my driveway and said she was going to take my kids. That’s all I remember.”

Washington Township Police Cpl. Thomas Falleni was questioned by Barisone’s lead attorney, Edward Bilinkas, as to how he collected information at the scene of the shooting.

He said he searched Barisone’s pick-up truck, but not other vehicles at the scene, and asked to have Barisone’s hands swabbed for gunshot residue, but said no residue testing was done on anyone. (This is a correction; the story previously said Barisone’s hands were swabbed.)

The corporal did not seize any video cameras, including one that had a view of the area where the shooting took place.

Several high-profile equestrians testified on the seventh day of the trial about how much Barisone had helped them in their careers, citing his coaching expertise, with some expressing concern about his condition as he agonized over the situation with Kanarek and Goodwin.

Allison Brock, coached by Barisone to a team bronze medal on the 2016 Olympic dressage team, was alerted by another professional equestrian, Jaime Dancer, that Barisone was “upset and distraught.”

Olympic dressage medalist Ali Brock was worried about her mentor, Michael Barisone. (Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)

Dancer said, “I thought he was going to kill himself.” She noted he had taken to pacing, like a horse that that is stressed.

When Brock heard from Dancer, she called Barisone, whom she had met in 2002 and considers a close friend.

“He was very quiet,” she said, noting that was “unlike Michael,” and discussed their conversation when he told her about the situation at his farm.

By the end of the phone call “he got more upset, sobbing hysterically,” Brock reported.

Eventing Olympic multi-medalist Phillip Dutton started working with Barisone on the dressage phase of his sport about the time of the 2012 London Olympics and a few years thereafter.

“All of my interactions with Michael were extremely honest,” said Dutton, calling him, “someone I could trust.”

There was a startling moment as his testimony ended, however, when Schellhorn brought up a 2011 fire caused by an electrical short in which six horses died at Dutton’s Pennsylvania farm.

“I’m sorry to ask you this question,” he said.

“Is it fair to say a barn fire can be dangerous for the horses?” he queried

“Absolutely,” Dutton replied.

Phillip Dutton testifying at the Barisone trial. (Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)

I wondered about the relevance of that query, but it could well be linked to earlier testimony that Goodwin had made an issue about the danger of a dryer that wouldn’t turn off in the Hawthorne Hill barn.

Another witness, Jordan Osborne, a working student for Barisone, was asked by another defense attorney Chris Deininger whether she ever felt threatened by Goodwin. The prosecution objected. Judge Stephen Taylor chastised the lawyer and told the jury the comment was stricken from the record.

Schellhorn asked the young woman whether her mother is Lara Osborne, and after getting an affirmative reply, said, “What’s the nature of her relationship with Michael Barisone?”

Osborne said, “They’re in a romantic relationship.” The defense objected, but was overruled.

Deininger then asked, “You swore under oath to tell the truth when you were brought here this morning. Would you violate that oath simply because of a relationship your mother was having?”

“Absolutely not,” she replied firmly.

Jordan Osborne said when Washington Township police came to the farm after being called as the facility became increasingly dysfunctional in the days before the shooting, they weren’t interested in doing anything about the situation. She described them as “very nonchalant. They turned around and walked away.”

Sean Cullen, a licensed professional counselor in psychology, met with Barisone Aug 9, two days after the shooting.

He testified about “a steady build of stressors in his life” that became acute in the days before the incident.

As Barisone discussed during their meeting what had been a volatile situation at his farm, Cullen recounted, the trainer said about his interaction with the police, “I kept telling them this was going to come to a boiling point.”