About

I have been an activist all my life, my husband abused me beginning in 1963 and apparently little has changed—the law  keeps letting men out to go home to exact revenge on their wives and in George Hartwig’s  case had his gun not jammed – my son-in-law would have wiped out the entire family that night.

I have lost all three of my children and now I am fighting for everyone else’s daughters, this must stop. The law must be changed to recognize violence against women is very serious and will finally be adjudicated as serious a crime as it really is.

Four women a day are killed at the hands of the man they love in the United States. The narrative is attached, and my draft of what Louisa’s Law should encompass.

Louisa’s Law seeks to require significant, effective sentences and strictly enforce VAW laws to reduce violence against women, using a three pronged approach of Prevention, Services and Accountability.

These are the facts behind Louisa’s Law:

Denise Richardson was married to George Hartwig.

Unknown to myself, she and her son, Christopher, now in his twenties were victims of domestic violence. Denise feared leaving her husband because of threats to kill her son and her entire family if she ever left him.

Christopher grew up in a house filled with fear. He slept with a knife under his pillow for his own protection, and he spent sleepless nights and stress-filled days believing his mother and her entire family would be killed. Both Christopher and his mom lived in hell for over eighteen years.

On several occasions, Christopher witnessed George beating his mother while threatening to kill her if the police were called. Likewise, Denise was told that Christopher would be killed if the police were called. Out of fear of losing her son, the brutality continued behind closed doors and in secret.

George had total control over Christopher and Denise. Christopher rarely went to school or out with friends because George was afraid he would tell people what was going on in the house. Likewise, Denise could rarely have company. The victims became isolated and withdrawn.

To add to the stress of daily life for this small family, George was an alcoholic and rarely worked. His sole purpose in life was to stay at home and watch Denise and Christopher and psychologically imprison them. When he did take a job, he often claimed an injury on the job so he could file false law suits and stay at home, watching his captives while he collected a check.

Denise wanted her freedom and she worried about the damage being done to her son. In an effort to gain independence, she started a home-based business selling tattoo supplies, which appeared to be a husband and wife run business to outsiders. George was tattooed from head to toe, but Denise did not have an ink mark on her. We thought she was running the Web site and bookkeeping, and that he was working in the business.  We now know she was doing the entire business covering up his inability and refusal to work at all.

At some point, George moved from drinking to drugs. Suspicions were raised some years ago due to his strange behavior and were proven when all of Denise’s jewelry went missing. Also, family members began missing jewelry, then prescription medications, and then major electronics, and so on. He essentially robbed the family as well as his neighborhood blind.

Around the year 2000, we were told that George hurt his back on a job. He needed back surgery and was on permanent disability and on pain medication for life. This was the excuse for why George was caught robbing the family. Supposedly, the doctor got him hooked on pain medications and at some point they refused to give him high enough dosages, so he robbed homes to get money for the pills. Not just our homes. Not just since 2000. We suspected George was a thief all along. He always had a house full of goods he insisted he got at garage sales, weekly, and really cheap!

Denise was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer in 2006, the business began to suffer and she could not bring in enough money to support his habit. In June of 2008, George bludgeoned her head open with a hammer in order to get her pain medication off her body where she was forced to hide it from him. He weighed over two-hundred pounds; she was a bald and dying eighty pounds. She begged for her life and gave him the pills and he left the house.

Denise filed a report at the hospital, but believing he might kill her son if she turned on him, she advocated for his placement into a drug rehab. (I have all the letters.)

The reason she did this was because every time they put him in jail they let him out and he had nowhere else to go but to her home. She feared him and for her son and family’s lives. She honestly felt safer advocating for him to get inpatient help instead of testifying against him. As usual, they let him out again without one cent in bail.

He had no job – no place to live, no money, and no program.

He went home to my daughter saying – “Honey, I’m home! I got lucky! My judge is ‘Let ‘em go Lipton. “

Denise, near death, found him an apartment and made promises to go to therapy with him. She was afraid of him, but she did not take him back into the house. He came several times a week, not to visit, but really to take her pills. The family stepped in because she became too ill to care for herself.

On December 15, 2008 at approximately 9:00 p.m. George returned to the house with a shotgun and demanded the pain pills from Denise.  Louisa Rodas, her baby sister, was caring for Denise. When Louisa saw the gun, she placed a call for help. George said to Louisa, “Put down the Phone!”  Louisa hit the send button and George blew her brains out!

He is now pleading temporary insanity. He has hired a “Top 100 Lawyer” in New Jersey on contingency of the $400,000 he has coming from that bogus back injury from 2000. His cracker jack attorney, named “Top 100 New Jersey Lawyer”, has offered the prosecutor a plea deal, which would get him out in seventeen years, and with the two he has served, he will be walking the streets in fifteen years, while Louisa, forty-two and strong as an ox, except for missing half of her head, skull, and jaw bone, as well as half of her brain, all of her memory, her eye, her ear, her ability to talk, walk, sit-up, or live much of a life, is confined to this life the next forty plus years—like it or not. Where is the justice in this scenario?

Denise passed March 7, 2009. We are looking for a lawyer to confirm my draft language is appropriate and someone to take this to the floor for us.

In the US, nearly 4* women are killed daily at the hands of their domestic partner, a woman is raped every few* minutes; a woman is battered every few* seconds. Every year, violence in the home and the community devastates the lives of millions of women. Perpetrators of violence against women are rarely held accountable for their acts. When women do challenge their abusers, it can often only be accomplished by long and humiliating court battles with little sympathy from authorities or the media. Violence against women is so deeply embedded in society that it often fails to garner public censure and outrage; instead the sentences are often nonexistent. It’s time to stop slapping the hands of perpetrators of violence against women and send the message of zero tolerance and creating specific sentences for VAW. Women must feel safer to file complaints and testify against their perpetrators and men must take committing violence against women as the serious crime it is.  * Statistics need to be updated to 2011

Louisa’s Law is proposed to honor my daughter, Louisa Richardson Rodas, who was caring for her dying sister Denise Richardson on the day she was shot in the head and permanently disabled by George Hartwig, Denise’s abusive husband.  Had the following proposed measures been in place on December 15, 2008, my daughter Louisa would not be lying in a nursing home, unable to sit or stand, unable to communicate, unable to eat or drink, unable to raise her children or recognize them. 

George Hartwig had viciously bludgeoned his dying wife Denise in the head with a hammer months earlier. He pled guilty to an attack on a dying woman for her pain medication as a result of drug abuse yet he was denied treatment. He was a repeat offender yet he was set free without bail and released without a restraining order. The only protection Denise had was her family taking turns to protect her. It was Louisa’s turn when George Hartwig returned with a shotgun and callously blew the right side of her head off.

Louisa’s Law seeks to require significant, effective sentences and strictly enforce VAW laws to reduce violence against women, using a three pronged approach of Prevention, Services and Accountability.

a)      Speedy trials because of the risk of repeat violence perpetrated while free on bail and incarceration during sentencing period;

b)      Enter an automatic and enforceable order of protection with a minimum term of ten years;

c)       Violators who were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the violation against a woman or who have any drug-related offenses within three years of the violence incident must enter a rehabilitation program and/or be tested periodically for continued drug or alcohol abuse;

d)      A GPS monitor should be installed if the violator is released from police custody using a system with victim notification;

e)      Full cash bail and full cash surety bonding must be implemented with domestic violence screening as part of the bonding process.  For repeat offenders or violators of restraining orders, offenders are not given the opportunity for bail but should remain incarcerated pending trial because of the documented risk of death to the victim and victim’s family members upon release of repeat offenders and those who have violated restraining orders; 

f)   Violator must enter an approved batter/anger management program with monitoring;

g)   Require a compliance conference before the judge for accountability;

h)   Sentences must be served rather than suspended so that the victims and their families are safe.

i)   Require judges to consider a variety of aggravating factors to ensure safety and punishment consistent with the risks for repeat violence, death, and permanent disability associated with VAW;

J.)   Pro bono legal services are provided to the victim to advise her of her rights and direct her for help and services.

K.)  Establishing a Nationwide Domestic Violence Registry for use by law enforcement and the public to promote instant access to existing orders of protection and residence of convicted abusers because of the risk of repeat violence.