In a curious twist, the woman whose signed statement to police led to domestic violence charges against Sen. Adlah "Foncie" Donastorg has a new signed statement saying it is all a misunderstanding, a mistake—and a conspiracy.
The missive, signed "K.E.," was issued to various media outlets Monday morning by attorney Judith Bourne of St. Thomas.
A married father of six, Donastorg, 48, was arrested Thursday on charges of aggravated assault, third-degree assault under domestic violence laws, brandishing a deadly weapon and using a dangerous weapon in the commission of a crime of violence.
K.E.’s version of events distributed Monday is rambling, often self-contradictory, and raises as many questions as it purports to answer.
The broad outline of her new account is similar to the police statement she signed, but with several important differences painting Donastorg in a much more favorable light.
In both accounts, she showed up unannounced at Donastorg’s home the night of Jan. 28 and would not leave. According to the police statement she signed, Donastorg ordered her away from his yard at gunpoint, threatening to shoot her and another female witness if they did not leave.
But in the new version, K.E. writes, "he went back into the house, got his gun, put it in his waist, and went back to the door. … He did not point the gun at anyone or threaten anyone."
In both versions, K.E. said Donastorg drove her home and forced her out of his car. But in her signed statement to police, she said when she would not get out of the car, Donastorg "began strangling her … pulled her out of the vehicle through the driver’s side … and threw her onto the ground," hurting her back and neck and breaking a toenail and fingernail.
In her new version, K.E. writes, "I refused to get out of his car and hugged him tight around his neck when he leaned across to open my door. When he was finally able to pull me out through the driver’s door, I slipped, but he caught me and I did not fall."
In K.E.’s first statement, she refers to being intimate with Donastorg, conceiving and aborting a child with him. In the new statement, there is no mention of any intimacy, only of friendship and moral support.
In her new statement recanting her earlier signed statement to police, K.E. frequently says she was at fault and was acting out of anger and immaturity over a rejected infatuation when she made her first statement.
But, anger and immaturity notwithstanding, she also suggests a political conspiracy to get her to accuse Donastorg.
The chain of events leading to her initial signed statement to police began, she now claims, when she was at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles the day after the Jan. 28 incident, very upset and crying, which prompted an acquaintance, Laverne Campbell, to ask her what was wrong.
"I think I said we had a fight," she writes. According to K.E.’s new version, Campbell called Lesley Comissiong, a former special assistant to Gov. John deJongh Jr., to come help, and the two called the police and brought her to speak with Police Commissioner Novelle Francis.
In the new account, K.E. gives what seems to be a self-contradictory account of being offered a bribe to smear Donastorg. On the way to speak to Francis, she writes, "They urged me to bring charges and said that someone would pay me $150,000 or more to bring Adlah down," suggesting government agents were already at the ready, awaiting someone to claim Donastorg attacked them and then provide cash for the statement.
There is no mention of money, in fact, changing hands in either of her versions of events.
At Donastorg’s advice of rights hearing on March 5, Donastorg’s attorney gave a somewhat different version, saying someone contacted K.E. on Facebook with an offer of money. If that version of events is accurate, a record will exist on Facebook’s servers. K.E.’s new signed version of events is more difficult to verify.
Other parts of her new version of events seem self-contradictory as well. K.E. said she signed the initial statement but told VIPD Det. Deborah Jack – the officer who took her statement – that it was not accurate.
"She [Jack] said we would go over it again and fix it when she came over to St. Thomas, but that never happened," K.E. writes, suggesting several times officers altered her account before she signed it, then would not let her change it afterwards.
But K.E. also writes that Jack "asked me numerous times to do a video statement," which would have given her the opportunity to correct any inaccuracies in her written statement.
"I refused," K.E. said, suggesting the effort to get a video of her telling her story in her own words was designed to "blackmail Adlah."
As a final twist, according to this new statement, as soon as charges were filed, K.E. again went to Donastorg’s private home to try to explain, and again would not leave.
"He (Donastorg) called Det. Jack to tell her that I was at his house and didn’t want to leave, which was true," she writes. "He gave me the phone and Det. Jack told me to leave. I said okay and hung up but I didn’t leave. … (Later) someone called my name from outside and it was the police. I asked them why they were there. They said I had to go with them, so I did."
Donastorg faces a minimum of one year and a maximum of five years in prison for the weapons charges alone. Convictions on all charges would carry a minimum sentence of eight years.
Editor’s note: Leslie Comissiong is a former – not a current – special assistant to Gov. John deJongh Jr.
