Former bail commish faces assault charges
Tim OBrien, the longtime city bail commissioner, was charged Sunday with allegedly assaulting his girlfriend.
FORMER city Bail Commissioner Tim O'Brien was arrested Sunday for allegedly roughing up his girlfriend.
O'Brien, 50, allegedly grabbed his girlfriend by her hair and smacked her face into a wall on March 31, said Officer Jillian Russell, a police spokeswoman.
The incident occurred about 11:30 p.m. on Pickwick Street near Almond, in Port Richmond.
The 35-year-old woman, whom the Daily News is not identifying, was taken to Temple University Hospital for treatment, Russell said.
A warrant for O'Brien's arrest was issued Thursday night, said Tasha Jamerson, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office.
Scott DiClaudio, O'Brien's attorney, said that he negotiated with police for the former bail commissioner to surrender Sunday at East Detectives' headquarters, on Whitaker Avenue near Erie.
"He did not get preferential treatment," DiClaudio said.
O'Brien was charged with simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, harassment, possessing an instrument of crime and unlawful restraint.
Jamerson said an out-of-county judge denied a request for a stay-away order.
O'Brien was released after posting 10 percent of his $5,000 bail.
DiClaudio said that O'Brien, who opted earlier this year not to seek another four-year term as bail commissioner, refuted the allegations.
O'Brien's girlfriend has "already recanted . . . and does not wish to prosecute the matter," DiClaudio said, adding that the couple are still together.
"She has attempted to go to the detective division and give a revised statement," he said, "but both the Police Department and the District Attorney's Office have refused to take said revised statement."
Police spokesman Lt. John Stanford said that departmental policy prevents investigators from changing a domestic-assault victim's statement if she has visible injuries.
"At that point, the commonwealth takes over and will be the complainant, even if she wants to recant her story," Stanford said.
O'Brien became a city bail commissioner in 1992.
When the city's murder rate soared in 2007, O'Brien made headlines for deciding to hold without bail a man who had allegedly straw-purchased seven firearms and then sold the weapons to a drug dealer. Bail guidelines called for the suspect to be released on his own recognizance.
When O'Brien's 20-year career as bail commissioner came to an end, rumors began to surface that he was eyeing a potential run for political office.
On March 28, he hosted a $250-per-person fundraiser that was attended by Gov. Corbett at the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5's headquarters, in Northeast Philadelphia.