Andover woman acquitted of assault in snowball case

An Andover mother charged with assaulting a high school student after her car was pelted with snowballs was acquitted after another woman testified that she had been targeted the day before, the woman's lawyer said yesterday.

A Lawrence District Court jury took less than half an hour on Monday to acquit Marie Needs, 48, of one charge each of assault with a dangerous weapon and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. A lesser charge of carrying a firearm -- pepper spray -- without proper registration was dropped.

The incident took place March 16, when Needs went to Andover High School to pick up her child. After a group of students began pitching snowballs at her car, Needs went after at least one student with a tire iron, police said. She also pepper-sprayed 17-year-old Joey Cataldo, police said.

Cataldo was not among the youths throwing snowballs, but became involved when he asked Needs to move her car because it was blocking his.

Needs said she was acting in self-defense. She testified that she sprayed Cataldo after he got sarcastic with her and that she felt threatened. Cataldo could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Needs rejected several offers of plea bargains from prosecutors, said her lawyer, Robert Lewin.

''She needed her day in court," he said.

The trial, which lasted only four hours, hinged on the testimony of a woman who said she had experienced a similar incident.

The woman, whom Lewin declined to identify, told the jury that she went to pick up her daughter at the school on March 15, and students threw snowballs at her. One snowball broke a windshield, Lewin said. The woman told the jury she wished she had done what Needs did.

Lewin said the woman told the jury, ''It took courage to stand up to these kids . . . it's not right to throw snowballs and attack people when they come to the school to pick up their kids."

Lewin called the woman's testimony ''a turning point."

''It really showed what this case was all about," he said.

Rebecca Mahoney can be reached at remahoney@globe.com.