SALEM — A Lynn man who took part in what a prosecutor called a "vicious" fight between his estranged wife and his girlfriend outside a courthouse last summer will spend six months in jail, a judge ordered yesterday.
Michael Bain, 37, and his now-former girlfriend Caroline Thompson, 27, of Woburn, were in court yesterday, where both were expected to plead guilty to the attack on Bain's now-former wife outside Salem Superior Court last July.
Bain was sentenced to 2 1âÑ2 years in jail, with six months to be served and the balance suspended for three years.
After learning that she would have to serve a month in jail, Thompson withdrew her plea and asked for the case to continue toward trial.
The incident was apparently the result of escalating tension between Bain's wife and his girlfriend.
But Bain's lawyer, Randy Chapman, acknowledged that his client took things too far when he participated in the beating, which left Pamela Bain with a broken sternum and other injuries from being punched and kicked.
The separated couple had been in court that morning for proceedings in their divorce case. Thompson waited in Bain's truck.
When Pamela Bain came out of the courthouse, words were exchanged between the women. Chapman said Mrs. Bain had gone by her estranged husband's apartment earlier in the day and yelled vulgarities at the woman. She is also awaiting trial on charges that she deliberately rammed her husband's truck in Lynn while he and Thompson were inside.
Prosecutor Jane Prince asked the judge for a longer time in jail for both. "It's unbelievable to the Commonwealth that such a vicious attack could occur right outside a courthouse," she said.
Chapman argued that his client has already paid a high price for his actions that day, including being held without bail for a month and a half as a danger to the public after his arrest.
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