MIDDLETOWN, Conn. — A Middletown judge granted a family diversion program for East Lyme Police Chief Michael Finkelstein, who is facing domestic violence charges, among other things.
“He’s not an abuser. He takes his responsibility with his wife very seriously. He takes his responsibility as a public servant very seriously,” Finkelstein’s lawyer, John Nazzaro, said in court Monday.
Finkelstein was first arrested back in June for domestic violence charges related to an alleged fight between him and his wife. In court, prosecutors described conflicting accounts of the incident, where the couple was arguing over texts in Finkelstein’s work phone. Court documents show the encounter ended with injuries to his wife’s face.
“She claimed as part of the incident between the two that the defendant got aggravated with her and actually punched her in the face. She claimed injuries to her nose,” the prosecutor said.
He then went on to explain that when state troopers questioned Finkelstein, his account of what happened was that, “At one point, he let go of the phone to diffuse the struggle and hand came up and hit her face with the phone in her hand and that’s how the injury occurred.”
As Connecticut State Police looked into East Lyme's internal investigation of those allegations, Finkelstein was hit with three more charges connected to a similar incident that occurred a year prior. Initially, Finkelstein hadn’t been charged in that June 2023 incident, but then state police got a warrant for violation of a protective order, false statement and disorderly conduct.
Prosecutors mentioned in court that those additional charges could be dismissed through a process called nolle prosequi, if Finkelstein successfully completes the diversionary program.
“There’s nothing about these facts in particular that are different than any other factual scenarios in which the court would grant this program,” the judge said in court.
“The goal of the program is to permit someone to have counseling, go through the requirements, and he will complete that, and if successful, the case is then dismissed,” Nazzaro said.
Nazzaro said his client is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, in part related to sustaining burns in a fire and his career in public service. He said Finkelstein has been getting mental health counseling on his own since being arrested and is doing better.
“This is an unfortunate situation. It resulted in a disturbing situation…an arrest. We want to get the family back together. We want to get him back to work,” Nazzaro said.
Nazzaro said though there is a protective order keeping Finkelstein away from his home, he has been in contact with his wife and children on a regular basis.
When asked about referring to the domestic violence charges as “so-called domestic violence charges," Nazzaro said, “I’m not going to respond to that other than the charges speak for themselves. But as I said in court, he’s not an abuser, let alone a serial abuser. These are qualified as domestic violence charges, under the nomenclature of the program, and thus, he’s eligible.”
Finkelstein will be back in court on Sept. 10 to be heard on a motion to alter a protective order, which currently bars him from going to his house.
In the meantime, he remains on paid administrative leave as the town’s police commission seeks out a third-party law firm to take over the internal affairs investigation into the way the East Lyme Police Department handled the initial allegations.
The Connecticut State Police recused itself from taking the lead last week, after claiming the town was sharing confidential information about the case with reporters.
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Julia LeBlanc is a reporter at FOX61 News. She can be reached at jleblanc@fox61.com Follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
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