Jury: Former White House Lawyer Michael Farren Guilty of Attempted Murder

A Stamford jury on Friday found J. Michael Farren of New Canaan, 61, a former White House legal counsel, guilty of the attempted murder of his wife in 2010, Cablevision News 12 reports.

On Monday, Mary Farren, 47, testified against her former husband on Monday, describing how he beat her in their New Canaan home after she served him with divorce papers.

New Canaan police charged Farren in early January 2010 with attempted murder and first-degree strangulation after the panic alarm was activated at his house on Wahackme Road and a neighbor called 911. At the time, his wife was 43 years old and he was 57.

The assault was described this way in a Jan. 8, 2010 New Canaan Patch report about the incident, relating a New Canaan police description:

The attack allegedly began after he brought up the suit, saying he wanted to get back together.  

According to her statements recorded in police reports, when she told him she wouldn't drop the divorce case he began hitting her with a metal flashlight to the point that she passed out. When she came to he started hitting her with the flashlight again and strangling her with his bare hands.

As the struggle continued, Farren's wife, now temporarily blind from the assault, fumbled for the panic button which she eventually reached around 10 p.m., sending him into a further rage.

He threatened suicide, went to get a large knife and then into the bathroom and attempted to get his wife into the bathroom as well. Police photos later showed slit marks on Farren's wrists.

At that point she ran, grabbing her seven-year-old and four-month-old daughters, and driving to the first house she saw with the lights on. Neighbors there dialed 911 and got the children from the car—the baby was lying on the front passenger seat, the older girl sitting in the back in pajamas and bare feet.
 
Police at the time said they found her at a neighbor's house with a broken jaw, broken nose, lacerations to her head and bruises elsewhere. Police said that as Mary Farren spoke with police about the incident, she was vomiting blood.

In 2010, Michael Farren was treated at the Institute for Living mental health center in Hartford, then lived with his sister in West Hartford.

Farren's assault on his then-wife occurred in their $4 million house about a year after he left his job in the White House as deputy counsel to President George W. Bush.

Michael Farren refused to be in court during testimony as a protest about legal representation from his two appointed attorneys, Cablevision News 12 reported.