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A man allegedly involved in a local woman's ongoing domestic violence case is not facing his first day in court.
And that, according to Samantha Skudlarek, is part of the problem. The case involves multiple incidents in three states – and communication between courts has been a struggle.
Skudlarek told The Post-Journal she has been working for a long time on getting the court system to examine all of the man's past and current charges together with her own, including being in contact with the other women involved. In that time, she has found it difficult to get courts to look at all of the charges as a whole or a pattern. An added difficulty to this matter is that the man has charges against him not only in New York state, but Pennsylvania and Michigan as well.
BACKGROUND CHECKS
Skudlarek said she is the person that people will go to for background checks and information on men when they meet someone new through places like dating apps. Upon meeting her ex on a dating app, she did her own background check and all that she found was a charge against him for a DUI and running from police, something she said he claimed made him change his life.
Besides the one mug shot from that charge, there was nothing else to be found at first. It was not until later on that Skudlarek said she got a hint of something else from something he said that led her to finding multiple charges against him in Michigan. To find those charges she said she had to pay a little bit of money, and there were no news articles or any information without that that could be found on any of the charges. One charge included the lowest strangulation charge a person can get, which was in Niagara County, and Skudlarek said that charge no longer exists even though she has been in contact with a woman involved in the case who told Skudlarek that she also has multiple hospital and police reports in less than five years.
"The fact that those didn't show up is very concerning," Skudlarek said. "I really never realized there's not a good avenue to report a criminal as a whole. Everything is just looked at so individually that it ends up putting the rest of us in harm's way."
PATTERNS CAN EMERGE
Throughout her own process with her case that has included her own charges against the man, Skudlarek has discovered that even with a pattern things are looked at individually and certain things do not get presented to judges, or get presented strategically. Even when presenting his history that shows a pattern, things still do not get qualified as something that is able to be brought up in court for other cases.
For her own individual case, Skudlarek said the Jamestown Police Department's Project Crossroads was very helpful, and the only thing hindering them from being able to do more was communication across departments.
"That's another thing that has been crazy is the lack of communication between state troopers, JPD, New York State and Pennsylvania, when we are right on the line," Skudlarek said. "I have to be the middle man, or I sometimes have to call a victim advocate. There is an officer that works with the victim advocacy program in Pennsylvania, and he has been awesome. When I call him he makes things happen between New York and Pennsylvania."
Skudlarek added that between the two states there seems to be a concern about "hopping the pond", which makes it seem like they hold back certain information, including a license plate number. Skudlarek said she believes how criminal histories are handled across state lines needs to be examined by state lawmakers. .
"A person shouldn't be able to move from Michigan to New York to Pennsylvania and have their history of violence treated as though it exists in separate compartments," Skudlarek said. "A conviction might not technically apply towards sentencing in another state, but that doesn't mean the behavior or the danger disappears."
Her story, Skudlarek said, is not about what happened to her or whether one man goes to prison, but rather how many opportunities one can have to continue hurting women before the system recognizes the danger.
"The whole reason I went to the police wasn't to keep myself safe," Skudlarek said. "I could've just disappeared, I think, where I was at. It was because what I found out about him was so concerning. I had no idea who he was and the public was in danger."
While she said she understands everyone has constitutional rights and that charges are not convictions, she has also watched a man with a criminal history spanning multiple states face serious domestic violence charges, be released on bail, fail to appear in court, face new allegations involving another woman in another state, and still have the possibility of receiving probation for a violent felony.
'UP TO VICTIMS TO UNCOVER INFORMATION'
Skudlarek said her ex has had multiple victims, some at the same time and not all related to domestic violence, including some assaults at his workplace and sometimes snapping at public workers at businesses. Skudlarek called specific accurate locations into the police multiple times, including drug activity, and eventually he had a second victim in Pennsylvania, who has since contacted Skudlarek. The second victim's charges against him included strangulation and a weapon. Eventually, he was put into a Pennsylvania jail after Skudlarek, and some of his other victims banded together.
"One of the most frustrating things I've learned is how much responsibility falls on victims to uncover information, connect cases, and advocate for their own safety," Skudlarek said. "I've spent months researching records, contacting agencies, gathering evidence, and communicating with other women. There's points where I felt like I should've been being paid as a private investigator just knowing that if I don't do something, somebody is going to get hurt because it doesn't seem like the law is taking it seriously, or maybe it's that law enforcement knows how our current court systems works and that it isn't going to make much of a difference in public safety. Why does it take a victim doing all that work to bring attention to a pattern that should be identifiable within our criminal justice system?"
He spent a month in Pennsylvania jail, was extradited to New York, where his bail was set lower than it was in Pennsylvania -- which Skudlarek noted to be weird because of her three felony charges against him, when he only had one in Pennsylvania -- and it was also not brought up that he had another victim when setting the bail amount. Skudlarek said within an hour of him being brought into the New York jail, she was sent a notification that he was out again. The woman who had paid his bail the first time was able to pay it again, even though he had shown, Skudlarek said, that he had a pattern of not showing up to court and had jumped bail in the past.
"When I read up about bail reform, that should've been considered because he didn't come back the first time," Skudlarek said. "He should've been held the second time. He assaulted someone and showed he is not good to keep track of in between court dates. I looked up the law that gave the judges every right to hold him, and I don't see why because it happened in Pennsylvania that it shouldn't matter in New York."
Skudlarek said when she researched bail reform and first went to the police, she thought they would actually be able to hold him and look into the bigger picture, because of the severity of his charges and the multiple charges in multiple states. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, New York State's bail reform law that was enacted in 2019 and took effect in 2020, eliminated cash bail and pretrial detention for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, relying instead on non-monetary release conditions. Amendments have been made to the law since that time in 2020, 2022, and 2023 to add more offenses to the bail-eligible list. The charges against Skudlarek's ex include multiple violent felonies, such as her own strangulation charges.
"Strangulation isn't simply another form of assault," Skudlarek said. "It's one of the most serious warning signs associated with future domestic violence homicide. Yet we're still allowing the possibility that someone convicted of felony strangulation could receive no incarceration. I believe our laws need to do a better job of recognizing patterns of violence, particularly when those patterns involve strangulation."
In her experience, she said it seems that charges seem to be constantly pleaded down, giving perpetrators the chance to continue to lie and cover things up. Multiple women have reached out to Skudlarek about him, either from his past or current situations, that have detailed how they have almost lost their lives with him.
"It doesn't seem like there's anybody you can go to to look into him as a whole," Skudlarek said.
PROPOSED CHANGES
Specifically, Skudlarek said she would advocate for changes to the law, including; stronger bail and release considerations for repeat domestic violence defendants, a better system for recognizing criminal histories within and across state lines, stronger sentencing protections for felony strangulation especially if there is a history of charges, whether they ended up proceeding court or not, or when there is multiple instances of strangulation in the case, and more accountability when additional victims come forward, especially a new victim during proceedings.
"It's weird that they make you feel like you have to be careful not to do something that could undo these things," Skudlarek said. "There shouldn't be anything I could do or that could've happened that would make these things OK. It seems like no one wants to look into doing anything extra, but sometimes these cases involve extra time and going through all of the charges and not simplifying it and condensing it down."
She would also like to see more meaningful victim participation in plea negotiations, and better communication between law enforcement agencies across states. Skudlarek raised a concern about how little influence victims have over pleas and sentencing decisions.
"We are asked to relive our experiences, provide evidence, testify, and trust the process," Skudlarek said. "But we can still be left facing the possibility that the person who harmed us will return to everyday life without serving any time. I'm not asking for revenge. I'm asking for accountability and meaningful protection."
Skudlarek has seen her ex's charges get pleaded or condensed down, and Skudlarek said that is why he is still able to get away with things, including what happened to her.
"I'm trying to stop that from happening and it seems like there's no avenue to actually do that," Skudlarek said. "I was told bail reform and bail is not about public safety, it's just about getting them back into court. I don't know where public safety comes in, because he will continue to hurt people."
Other women that have been with him, Skudlarek said, have assumed that he was not actually that bad and that she was just a jealous ex because of him being able to be out and about, as well. This is especially true in Pennsylvania she added, where they might not understand what happens with bail reform in New York State.
Right now, she said, he has been distracted by another victim, and while she knows if she just stopped contact and disappeared she would be safe, Skudlarek does not want to let this continue to happen.
"I want to know that in the future they're not going to let other people do that with me or other women," Skudlarek said. "It's scary to be in the dating scene knowing that they're letting these guys go out there and continuing to give them chances to do this over and over again."
Skudlarek emphasized that she believes in due process and that not every accusation should automatically result in incarceration, but added that serious charges and patterns of behavior and a plethora of evidence should give courts stronger tools to protect the public.
Skudlarek has two teenage sons watching everything as it happens, old enough to understand what is happening and what it means when someone is charged with domestic violence and hurting women. Skudlarek wants them to grow up believing the justice system takes violence against women seriously and to not see that someone can strangle multiple women and not be held accountable.
"Most importantly, I don't want another woman to have to go through what I did before the system decides someone is dangerous enough to stop," Skudlarek said. "I want our laws to recognize patterns of violence before another woman becomes the next victim, not afterward."