The Appeals Court has upheld the conviction of a Newton man on charges that, apparently irritated by the frequency of visits by Jehovah’s Witnesses, he assaulted and injured two older women hoping to proselytize him on his front walkway.
Defendant Neal Farber, upon realizing that the women were ringing the doorbell of his home with the intention of speaking to him about the Bible, yelled at the women to leave, saying “Nobody wants you around here.”
As they turned to walk away, Farber then shoved each in the back with his hands, knocking one, Margaret Johns, to the ground. She was taken by ambulance to the hospital where she was treated for a broken bone in her arm and two fractures of her rotator cuff.
At trial, Farber testified that he had told other Jehovah’s Witnesses on a number of occasions not to come to his door and that he was offended by the women’s attempt to convert him to a religion he said was “full of shit.” But he denied pushing them, saying they stumbled on their own from some broken tiles on the walk.