ShareThisWhen Guerline Dieu Damas sent a letter to a Collier County criminal judge this year, begging to give her husband a second chance, it wasn't the first time.
Four years ago, Dieu filed a motion to dismiss an injunction against Mesac Damas after she contended he'd beaten her.
"I would like to give him another chance," Dieu wrote on June 20, 2005, just two weeks after he unsuccessfully sought a restraining order against her.
Less than a month later, on July 14, 2005, Collier Circuit Judge Cynthia Ellis dismissed Dieu's case against Damas, who was then her boyfriend.
Now, Dieu is dead, along with the couple's five children, "Zack", 9, Marven, 6, Maven, 5, Megan, 3, and Morgan, 11 months. Relatives say their throats were slit.
And police in Haiti arrested Damas Monday.
"It just shocks me thinking about it," said Damas' defense attorney, Derek Verderamo of Naples. "I was just shocked. He loved his kids and they loved him."
The sentence imposed that June by Collier Circuit Judge Robert Crown was Damas' first brush with the criminal justice system. Because Dieu claimed he hit her, causing her to drop baby Morgan as two other children watched, the state Department of Children and Families was involved.
Damas complied with the case plan, which included classes for batterers and for parenting, and 200 hours of community service. Verderamo said Family Preservation Services caseworker Manju Nath visited the family weekly and found they were doing well.
It was she who testified in Crown's courtroom in April, when Verderamo successfully had the no-contact order lifted after two failed attempts by his former lawyer, a public defender.
That, coupled with Dieu twice recanting her original statement to Collier Sheriff's deputies, prompted a reluctant Crown to dismiss the no-contact order in April. It was three months after Dieu's letter begged him to allow her husband to return because she needed him financially and to help with the children.
"Give him a chance to come back home," she wrote. " ... I think he learn his mistake. I forgive him. Please, do something quick for me and my children. Allow him to come back A.S.A.P. Please. God bless you."
Verderamo said Damas was complying with probation and had just made his last payment. He portrayed him as a caring father who was always with one or two of his children when he came to his office or probation.
Despite their history in domestic violence court, Verderamo considered Damas a first-time offender. "Anyone can go in and fill out an injunction," Verderamo said.
Court records show Damas always blamed Dieu for his problems, claiming she cut herself and then blamed him for doing it. "She always say that she will do anything to put me away," Damas wrote in June 2005.
He contended she threatened to take the children away from him and move back to her mother's home in Haiti. He said she threatened to kill him and claimed her brother had two guns.
In her court papers, Dieu wrote that he beat and sexually assaulted her, and stole her money from the bank. She said she couldn't "take it any more."
"He always hit me," she wrote in June 2005. "He abuse me all the time."
After he sought a restraining order against her that year, records show, he changed his mind and asked a judge to dismiss the case. "I love her so much," Damas wrote.
"She did a mistake. She brought me here and charged me (with) domestic violence."
Citing their years together and the three children they had at the time, he wrote, "I think it's the right time to do something great for her and the kids. For that reason, we (are) getting married."
But by November 2006, when he again sought a restraining order against her, they weren't married. In his application, he wrote that she wasn't patient, had a temper and harmed the children. By that time, he had a new girlfriend and wanted Dieu to stay away from them -- and his job at the Cheesecake Factory.
"I want a peaceful life," Damas wrote, noting that it was Dieu who asked him to leave. "I want a new life."
However, he was concerned about his children. "Sometime, she beat them up (too) much," he wrote in his application for an injunction. " ... If you think I'm lying, ask her to bring all the kids. Then you will see mark/abuse in the kids."
A month later, Collier Circuit Judge Frank Baker denied his application. Damas had failed to appear in court, although Dieu showed up.
Three months later, on March 27, 2007, they applied for a marriage license, according to county records, which show they got married on April 14, 2007, at First Haitian Baptist Church in Naples.
Things would be quiet until Jan. 5, 2009. That's when she called 911 to report he'd ripped off her shirt, hit her face several times, then choked her. Sheriff's reports say her baby dropped out of her arms, falling four feet to the concrete floor, but she wasn't able to call 911 until he left because he had her cell phone.
Children supported her claims, reports show. Maven told deputies, "Daddy was hitting mommy." Deputies documented her injuries, took photos and arrested Damas.
But Dieu later recanted her account twice before he was sentenced in June.
Now deputies are investigating a murder case against him.
