by Nancy Jaffer | Apr 4, 2022
A truck driver hired by Michael Barisone to keep watch over the dressage trainer’s stable amid discord at the property said his friend was “so messed up he could hardly even talk.”
An ongoing dispute between Barisone and two tenants he was trying to evict from his Hawthorne Hill farm created a toxic atmosphere that culminated in the Aug. 7, 2019 shooting of his dressage student, Lauren Kanarek, who lived in the house at the facility with her boyfriend, Rob Goodwin.
Barisone, who is being tried in Morristown, N.J., for attempted murder and weapon possession in the case, would walk his property in the Long Valley section of Washington Township, N.J., three or four times a night as he sought to insure the horses and people were safe.
“He was beside himself,” according to the driver, Lawrence Davidson, who started his nightly vigil at 8 p.m. during the week before the shooting.
Davidson was among the witnesses today as the prosecution rested and attorney Ed Bilinkas began his defense of the 2008 U.S. Olympic dressage team alternate. He is pursuing a combination insanity and self-defense strategy, showing how Barisone became desperate as tension with his tenants increased.
The last prosecution witness was Essex County attorney Edward David, who had met with Kanarek, Goodwin and Kanarek’s father, Jonathan Goodwin, also an attorney, about the eviction situation.
Attorney Edward David on the witness stand.
To put this in context, in his opening statement, Bilinkas had stated, “What this case is really about is about Lauren Kanarek, her father and her boyfriend devising a plan to destroy this man (Barisone) and drive him crazy.”
David said he was on the phone with Kanarek when she was shot. He was calling to give her good news about progress in reaching a resolution on the eviction issue with Barisone’s lawyer.
He described his conversation as, “one of the wildest phone calls” he ever had in his career. As he spoke to Kanarek, she told him, “Oh my God, I’ve been shot in the chest.” He said he heard what he thought were gunshots “but you don’t want to believe it.” However, he believed it enough to dial 911.
David had some trouble remembering things, excusing that by saying the shooting was four years ago. Actually, it was less than three years ago.
Goodwin and Kanarek had submitted a 1 and 1/2-page letter to Washington Township municipal officials detailing what they saw as a series of code violations, which sent the officials out in force the day before the shooting.
Christianna Cooke-Gibbs, the health officer who was involved with permitting at the farm since the late 1990s, recalled Barisone as a “competent, dignified, elegant man.” But when she came to the property on Aug 6, 2019, she saw someone “very different,” from the person she had known for so long, calling him a “very distraught, very disheveled man.”
She noted work that required permits was unauthorized, and the septic situation at the barn was not designed to handle people living on the site, rather than just working there.
When other officials talked with Goodwin, she stayed away.
“I just got a bad feeling; I don’t know why,” she said.
Fire official Matthew Lopez considered the situation in the house and barn from his perspective as “an imminent” hazard and ordered everyone evicted, with a $5,000/day fine for the property owner if anyone stayed in the buildings. However, he allowed Kanarek and Goodwin to stay after they sent him videos showing the smoke alarms were in working order, even though he did not go out and reinspect the building.
Edward Bilinkas goes over material with fire inspector Matthew Lopez. (Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)
There was testimony from people in the paramedic, EMT and medical fields about Barisone’s injuries, which included hematomas on both sides of his head, a “deformed” left elbow, bites near his groin area from Kanarek’s dog, a Rottweiler mix, and lacerations, among other things.
In an online posting, Kanarek said she had beaten Barisone on the head with a phone as he struggled with Goodwin in the chaos after the shooting.
Firefighter/paramedic Daniel Vitale called Barisone “confused,” and cited “altered mental status” when he was treating him.
When asked about what had happened, Morris County Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Schellhorn quoted Vitale reporting that Barisone replied, “Someone drove down my driveway and said she was going to take my kids. That’s all I remember,” adding he said his “heart was hurting, but not physically.”
Barisone does not have children, but his girlfriend at the time, Mary Haskins Gray, had two children.
Although the shooting happened on the day a caseworker from the state Division of Child Protection and Permancy came to the farm to talk with Gray, it has not been determined in the trial who called DCPP. It did come out in testimony last week, however, that Kanarek had searched for the agency’s hotline number on her phone. Barisone drove to the farmhouse where Kanarek and Goodwin lived after the caseworker had made her appearance.
Michael Barisone getting ready to leave court for the day and go back to the Morris County Correctional Facility. (Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)
Bilinkas seems to be trying to make a case that Barisone was beaten before the shooting took place, but some of his questions were viewed by Judge Stephen Taylor as an effort to “impeach” witnesses; that is, point out discrepancies in their testimony to hurt their credibility. The judge said after the jury had left the courtroom that, “when you impeach a witness, that attacks their credibility, it’s not substantive evidence. It doesn’t mean the shooting happened after Mr. Barisone was beaten and attacked.”
He added, “If you want to argue to this jury that someone beaten with a phone and having a dog bite on his groin is worse than being shot in the chest, have at it. You can make that argument. We’re not here to compare injuries.”
by Nancy Jaffer | Apr 1, 2022
Funeral services will be held next week in Peapack for Joan Scher of Bedminster, known for riding side-saddle with the Essex Foxhounds and her devotion to a variety of equestrian causes.
They included the U.S. Equestrian Team Foundation and the Gladstone Equestrian Association. She also served as a District Commissioner of the Somerset Hills Pony Club. A director of Weber & Scher Manufacturing Co., she was active at St Bridgid’s church, where a funeral mass will be held at 10:30 a.m. April 6.
Mrs. Scher, 86, died March 19. She is survived by her sons Douglas (Ann) and Greg (Lee) Scher, as well as six grandchidlren and two great-granchildren.
Donations in her memory may be made to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset.
by Nancy Jaffer | Mar 30, 2022
It was a difficult day at the Michael Barisone attempted murder trial in Morristown, N.J., as his former student, Lauren Kanarek, talked about her wounds, wiping away tears as she recounted the incident that led to her hospitalization for three weeks.
The anguish Barisone feels shows in his face, while he listens to the details of how his life unraveled during the proceedings before Superior Court Judge Stephen Taylor.
Kanarek met Michael at a 2018 clinic and he invited her to come to his farm in Long Valley, N.J. to train so she could reach a higher level of the sport. But things turned toxic in 2019, Barisone was at his breaking point and a downward spiral ended in tragedy when Kanarek was shot two times at point-blank range.
To read my story about what happened in court today, click here.
Here are a few more photos:
Michael Barisone in court. (Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)
Lauren Kanarek uses a pointer to guide the jury’s eyes toward a portion of a photo in the courtroom as Morris County Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Schellhorn looks on. (Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)
The jury saw a photo of the scars left on Lauren Kanarek by two bullets.
Lauren Kanarek relives her shooting in front of the jury. (Photo © 2022 by Nancy Jaffer)
by Nancy Jaffer | Mar 29, 2022
Dressage trainer Michael Barisone was “in an almost catatonic state” in mid-summer of 2019 as he feared for the safety of those around him and his business, viewing threats posted on social media by a boarder/tenant and other harassment with such alarm that he wasn’t eating or sleeping, his former assistant trainer testified today.
Justin Hardin was on the witness stand at Barisone’s attempted murder trial in Morristown, N.J., where he was asked if Barisone was depressed in the days leading up to the Aug. 7 shooting of Lauren Kanarek.
“Extremely,” came Hardin’s reply, noting that for the first time in the 18 years he had worked with Barisone, the 2008 U.S. Olympic dressage team alternate was withdrawn and couldn’t run his Hawthorne Hill stable in Long Valley, N.J., as usual, not even bothering to ride.
Justin Hardin, who worked as assistant trainer at Barisone Dressage. (Photo © by Nancy Jaffer)
When the trial opened yesterday before Judge Stephen Taylor, Barisone’s lawyer, Edward Bilinkas, recounted a saga of harassment by Kanarek and her boyfriend, Rob Goodwin, citing recording of private conversations, the threatening posts and disruption of his client’s home and business. The attorney is pursuing an insanity and self-defense strategy against the charges faced by Barisone, which also include two weapon possession counts.
Kanarek, who began riding with Barisone in 2018, was living in the trainer’s house with her boyfriend, Rob Goodwin, a carpenter doing work on that structure and elsewhere around the property. But their relationship with Barisone and his girlfriend, Mary Haskins Gray, turned sour. Barisone wanted them out, and was moving to evict them.
To get away from the couple in the meantime, Barisone and Gray moved out of the home into a clubhouse adjacent to the indoor ring, and eventually into space at the stable. Finally, a desperate Barisone found himself on a mattress outside the barn when he wasn’t walking the property at night because of his security concerns.
Morris County Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Schellhorn asked Hardin if Barisone had struggles with anxiety and depression before the situation with Kanarek and Goodwin arose.
Mary Haskins Gray on the witness stand.
While Hardin answered yes, he noted that those conditions were “extremely worse” leading up to the day of the shooting, when two bullets fired at point blank range ripped into Kanarek’s chest, leaving her in critical condition.
Also on the stand today was Gray, quite poised during the early part of her testimony, but looking less composed while the questioning went on about texts exchanged between her and Barisone as things spiraled downward at Hawthorne Hill.
Looking up at her from the defense table was Barisone, with whom she had a romantic relationship beginning in 2015 as the two also collaborated on teaching riders and training horses.
Michael Barisone in court.
Barisone, unshaven and wearing a rumpled gray shirt with a striped tie, watched her intently, occasionally wiping his eyes, as he also had done during other testimony yesterday.
Gray discussed a series of photos of the stable and clubroom with Schellhorn. The championship coolers, ribbons and photos of winning horses on the polished pine-paneled walls spoke of achievement, a sad contrast to the current state of the man who had crafted such success through hard work and horsemanship.
When Schellhorn asked if the atmosphere at the farm had become toxic, Gray replied, “That’s an understatement. We were terrified of what it was building to and what was coming next.”
Focusing on the money it takes to run a top-class stable, Schellhorn drew out Gray on financial issues faced by Barisone, who estimated it cost $40,000 a month to keep his business going. That included monthly payments of $6,000 for the Long Valley property and $3,000 to pay the mortgage on a farm in Loxahatchee, Fla., near Wellington, in addition to all the usual freight for feed, the farrier, veterinary care, maintenance and the other charges horse owners know so well.
Gray also said Barisone told her it was “hard to feel good” after he “got clipped $965,000” in connection with his divorce from Vera Kessels.
Michael Barisone and his ex-wife, Vera Kessels. (Photo © 2009 by Nancy Jaffer
Both Barisone and Gray, as well as Kanarek and Goodwin, in turn complained about the other couple to the U.S. Equestrian Federation and SafeSport.
At the end of July, Barisone texted Gray and told her he wanted information on what Kanarek had done to people in the past.
“I need every single person who has ever been screwed by Lauren, Rob and her dad. Farriers, vets, trainers. I ‘m going to get her a lifetime ban as a competitor,” he vowed.
On August 6, 2019, Gray shipped via UPS 756 pages of information along those lines to USEF counsel Sonja Keating. The shooting took place the next day.
Another discussion about the timeline centered around the SafeSport lifetime ban from the sport of hunter/jumper guru George Morris on the grounds of sexual misconduct involving a minor. The news about Morris, who had been a mentor of Barisone’s, came on August 5.
Two days later, a caseworker from the state Division of Child Protection and Permanency came to the farm to talk to Gray. It is believed that an allegation from Kanarek that Gray’s 11-year-old son had been abused by Barisone was the reason for the visit. There was discussion in court whether the prospect of being banned, after what happened to Morris, was the last straw. Shortly after the caseworker arrived, Barisone drove his pick-up truck to the house, talked briefly with Goodwin, and Kanarek was shot.
Another witness this afternoon was Ruth Cox, the owner of the pink and black Ruger handgun that was used in the shooting.
Ruth Cox and the Ruger.
Cox, who has a doctorate in marriage and family therapy, came to the farm Aug. 1, 2019 to see horses she co-owned with Gray that were in training.
Late one evening, Barisone asked to see the gun she kept with her for safety reasons when she was driving to New Jersey from her North Carolina home. He took it from her and she did not pick it up again until she lifted it today to show it to the jury.
by Nancy Jaffer | Mar 31, 2022
Dressage trainer Michael Barisone’s state of mind in the days before the shooting of Lauren Kanarek was a focal point as his attempted murder trial entered its fourth day in Morristown, N.J.
His former student and tenant, who was shot twice in the chest on Aug. 7, 2019, said under cross-examination by defense attorney Edward Bilinkas that she never threatened Barisone or his girlfriend, Mary Haskins Gray. But when Bilinkas asked about characterizing her social media posts on the subject of Barisone, she conceded, “they could be perceived as threatening.”
Lauren Kanarek on the witness stand.
Was her intention to scare Barisone, Bilinkas questioned.
“Maybe at a point,” replied Kanarek, who also conceded she had written a text saying “Michael is scared,” and indicated to Bilinkas that Barisone was afraid of her father, a retired attorney.
Kanarek and her boyfriend, Robert Goodwin, lived rent-free at a farmhouse on Barisone’s Hawthorne Hill farm in Long Valley, N.J. They paid $2,500 in board per month for each of two horses, while Goodwin did carpenter work on the house and barn to cover the fees for other horses Lauren owned.
Things went sour between the couples during the summer, and the whole farm became embroiled in the toxic atmosphere.
Michael Barisone in happier days at his Hawthorne Hill Farm. (Photo © 2009 by Nancy Jaffer)
Goodwin said Barisone told the staff not to communicate with him and Kanarek. That boiled over when an employee didn’t respond to Kanarek’s concern about a dryer in the stable that wouldn’t turn off, which she saw as a fire hazard.
Kanarek and Goodwin sent a 1 and 1/2-page letter citing “a dangerous and illegal situation” to the Washington Township housing inspector (Long Valley is part of Washington Township) detailing what they saw as code violations.
The result? Township officials descended on the farm Aug. 6 and put up notices telling everyone to vacate the premises. There was a $5,000/day fine if everyone didn’t leave.
Robert Goodwin.
Barisone, sitting at the defense table, had his head in his hands when that topic came up. Bilinkas is pursuing an insanity/self-defense strategy in his defense of the 2008 U.S. Olympic dressage team alternate.
In his opening remarks on Monday, Bilinkas contended that Kanarek, her father and Goodwin devised a plan to destroy Barisone and drive him crazy.
The shooting took place after a caseworker from the state Division of Child Protection and Permanency visited Gray, who had two children. Why did the caseworker come? What allegations were made?
“Was part of your plan to destroy Michael Barisone to contact…DCPP?” asked Bilinkas
Kanarek said no, and added she had never contacted the agency.
But her phone yielded recorded searches for that agency’s number on two dates in July. On July 31, she “did not recall” searching for the agency’s anonymous hotline, adding “but it’s possible.” Then she said she did remember. Lack of recollection came up often in her testimony, until she was shown documentation.
At the same time, she mentioned that Barisone’s assistant trainer, Justin Hardin, earlier that year had “stolen” her phone at a restaurant. Citing his technological expertise, she said he had broken into her phone and it was possible he “may have been able to do things to my phone that I did not.”
On Aug. 7, Barisone asked the caseworker and Gray, who were meeting in his office, to leave. He had kept a pink and black 9 mm gun, the weapon used in the shooting, in the office safe. Moments later, he drove to the farmhouse where Kanarek was living and the incident unfolded.
Michael Barisone in the courtroom.
Goodwin, 42, took the stand later in the day. Like Kanarek, who had a history with heroin, Goodwin admitted to using drugs “anything I could do to get out of my anxiety” under direct examination by Morris County Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Schellhorn.
When Bilinkas asked Goodwin whether he had used crack, the judge did not permit him to answer the question. Kanarek said earlier in the trial that she has been sober for several years but Goodwin admitted to some relapses while living in Long Valley, though he said he never took drugs while at the farm.
Goodwin said as August 2019 began, Barisone was “making life difficult at the farm for us to want to stay.” Barisone was trying to evict the couple.
Prior to that week, Goodwin said he had hoped “to salvage the relationship. Ultimately, we would (have) kind of liked to work something out.”
by Nancy Jaffer | Feb 1, 2022
The application deadline is just around the corner, April 1, to apply for the U.S. Hunter Jumper Association’s Emerging Athlete Program at Centenary University’s Equestrian Center in Long Valley June 20-24.
The riding clinician will be grand prix rider Candice King, a trainer with a warm personality who has represented the U.S. in Nations Cups and won the Queen Elizabeth Cup in England.
The USHJA Emerging Athletes Program, created in 2009 for riders to gain riding and horsemanship knowledge, has nine regional training sessions around the country in addition to the one in New Jersey. For more information and to apply, go to ushja.org/EAP.
New this year is the Stable Management Trainee Program, which offers a non-riding component to participants interested in learning more about the behind-the-scenes management of top-level equine athletes and competition barns. At Centenary, hunter/jumper/equitation trainer Tracy Forman will handle the stable management part of the program.
Participants shadowing the stable management clinician will receive more intensive instruction on horse care and management, providing an immersive learning experience on managing a barn and competition horses.
The Emerging Athletes Program is open to Junior, Amateur and Professional members 12 years of age or older as of December 1 of the current competition year and is offered at 0.90m and 1.0m fence heights.
Those interested in participating must complete and return the application, associated fee and three letters of recommendation to USHJA by the deadline.
Riders accepted into the Emerging Athletes Program begin by participating in the Regional Training Session,bringing their own horses and providing all care themselves.
Once the Regional Training Sessions conclude, 16 riders and a select number of stable managers will be invited to attend the National Training Session based on their riding and stable-management skills and potential shown during their Regional Training Session.
Only members between 12 and 25 years of age as of December 1 of the current competition year are eligible for the National Training Session. The dates and location for the 2022 Lindsay Maxwell Charitable Fund/USHJA Emerging Athletes Program National Training Session will be announced at a later date.
Each USHJA Zone offers a minimum of two grants to EAP participants to help offset the cost of attending a Regional Training Session or the National Training Session. For more information, visit ushja.org/zones, select your home zone, then click on “Grants and Scholarships.” EAP Grant applications also must be completed by April 1.
