Ray Newman has been found guilty of assaulting his ex-girlfriend last fall.
Family of his late ex-wife, Chrissy Predham Newman, whom he was acquitted in 2012 of murdering, clapped and said, “Yes!” in the St. John’s courtroom this afternoon when Judge David Orr announced the verdict.
Newman showed no emotion.
The 40-year-old had pleaded not guilty to assaulting and choking his ex-girlfriend during an argument at his Paradise home last September. The pair was admittedly drunk and had begun arguing on the way home, continuing the argument inside the house.
The woman testified Newman had punched her, tried to drag her out of the house by the leg and put his hands around her neck and choked her until she blacked out. She was able to get a breath of air, she said, and punched him in the nose, causing it to bleed.
The woman said she then drove to the police station in Mount Pearl, but found nobody there, so she returned to the house and slept in the vehicle in the driveway.
During his trial, Newman had said, “I never laid a hand on any woman in my whole life. Not only (the complainant), any woman.”
After Orr gave his decision, Chrissy Predham-Newman’s uncle, Bruce Harvey, spoke to the media, saying it was emotional for him because he was thinking of Chrissy today more than ever.
Harvey said he hopes this is the start of the courts and the public taking violence against women seriously
Newman will be sentenced June 27.
