Michael Barisone goes on trial

After thousands of speculative, gossipy posts on social media and multiple court conferences, dressage trainer Michael Barisone’s attempted murder trial finally got under way today in Morristown, N.J., with dramatic opening statements from his defense and the prosecution detailing what led up to the crime.

Barisone, who has been in the Morris County Correctional Facility since August 2019, appeared in court wearing a white shirt and yellow tie, rather than the yellow prison jumpsuit in which he has appeared before Judge Stephen Taylor over the course of nearly three years.

The shaggy-haired defendant occasionally had his head bowed while tears came to his eyes as each attorney’s approach to everything that happened unreeled in painful detail.The 2008 U.S. Olympic dressage team alternate pleaded not guilty to shooting dressage rider Lauren Kanarek twice in the chest at his farm on Aug. 7, 2019, the culmination of a student/teacher relationship gone wrong.

Kanarek was being trained by Barisone, boarded her horses at the farm and also lived in the trainer’s house with her boyfriend, Rob Goodwin. Barisone had tried to evict her as she and Goodwin repeatedly clashed with him and his girlfriend, Mary Haskins Gray, also a dressage trainer.

Morris County Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Chris Schellhorn set the stage this morning by describing for the jury Barisone’s picturesque Hawthorne Hill Farm in the Long Valley section of Washington Township, N.J., where the shooting took place, methodically explaining both the facility’s layout and the nature of dressage, as he gave a roadmap of the way the state will present its case.

He cited how Barisone and Gray, as well as Kanarek and Goodwin, were complaining about their situation to the U.S. Equestrian Federation and SafeSport, while Barisone was calling the police on almost a daily basis in the week before the shooting.

“These groups of people had it in for one another,” said Schellhorn. But whatever else happened, he told members of the jury, they are in the courtroom for one reason.

“We’re here on this trial because of the defendant’s choice on Aug. 7, 2019 to take the pink and black 9 mm handgun, point that gun at Lauren and pull the trigger twice and then to turn it on Rob and pull the trigger.”  That shot missed.

The handgun belonged to Ruth Cox, a North Carolina resident who owned horses with Barisone and was visiting his stable in August 2019. Barisone asked her for her gun, a  Ruger she had brought along on her trip. Barisone put the gun and ammunition in a safe in his office.

Cox, who would be charged with unlawful transportation of a firearm, will testify later in the trial. She  entered the Pretrial Intervention Program to avoid incarceration.

The last straw for Barisone came when a caseworker from the state Division of Child Protection and Permanency came to the farm to investigate an allegation made by Kanarek that Barisone had molested Gray’s 11-year-old son.

Barisone twice interrupted Gray and the caseworker who were talking in his office, eventually telling them they would have to take their conversation elsewhere. He retrieved the gun and drove his pick-up truck to the house, where he saw Goodwin on the porch.

“How do we end this without a war?” Barisone asked Goodwin. But as Kanarek walked down the porch steps, two bullets hit her. Kanarek managed to call 911 and tell the operator she had been shot.

“I’m losing a lot of blood,” she said, as Goodwin subdued Barisone until the police arrived.

Schellhorn contended that Barisone knew what he was doing and “certainly knew what he was doing was wrong.” The trainer is charged with not only two counts of attempted murder, but also possession of a firearm and possession of a firearm for unlawful purposes.

For his part, Barisone’s attorney, Ed Bilinkas, has said he will mount an insanity defense and include an element of self-defense as well.

“Help! I’m in fear for my life. Someone, anyone, please help me,” were the first words in Bilinkas’ opening statement, as he described how Barisone was desperate to end the escalating harassment that included recording of his conversations, threatening posts on social media and disruption of his home and business.

“Those were the cries for help from Michael Barisone. Those cries fell on deaf ears.”

While the shooting of Kanarek was a tragedy, Bilinkas said, Michael Barisone also has a tragic story.

Barisone had an awful childhood. He was physically abused by his mother and sexually molested by a neighbor, Bilinkas detailed.

Barisone was “A man who worked his way up to the top of the ladder. but behind the scenes was struggling with anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts.” The lawyer revealed Barisone had been seeing a therapist on and off for 20 years.

“What this case is really about is about Lauren Kanarek, her father and her boyfriend devising a plan to destroy this man and drive him crazy.” She thought it was funny that he was deteriorating, Bilinkas contended.

He said Kanarek’s social media posts “tell the real story, the scary story.” Bilinkas maintained Kanarek became obsessed with Gray and blames her for all her shortcomings, posting on social media attacks on the business, Barisone and Gray.

“Every man and woman has a breaking point. My client is not guilty,” the lawyer stated.

“At the time of the shooting, my client feared for his life. He was suffering from a mental disease and did not know what he was doing was wrong.”

Bilinkas informed the jury how a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity works.

“The courts will make a determination that provides for that individual but also provides to protect the public,” he explained.

The trial has moved on to testimony from law enforcement officers who responded to the scene of the shooting, and will continue in that vein tomorrow.