BOSTON (WHDH) - Lawyers for a former Boston College student who for months allegedly “physically, verbally and psychologically” abused her boyfriend before he jumped to his death in May — just hours before he was slated to receive his diploma — want prosecutors to drop the case and lift her travel restrictions.
Inyoung You, 21, of South Korea, returned to Suffolk Superior Court, where her defense team on Thursday announced that they would be filing to get her involuntary manslaughter charge dismissed. Her lawyers also blasted prosecutors for comparing You’s case to the high-profile Michelle Carter case.
“It would be a complete misapprehension of the Carter case to think that this case has anything to do with that one,” defense attorney Howard Cooper told reporters.
You pleaded not guilty in November to the charge in connection with the death of 22-year-old Alexander Urtula. In January, her attorneys argued that global media attention is impacting the case against her client.
A judge denied the defense’s request to obtain personal media devices from Urtula’s family and to lift travel restrictions.
“This basically tainted the jury pool,” defense attorney Steven Kim told the court. “To demonize my client as being a monster, who by the government’s own allegations, constantly over, and over, and over, wore this person down.”
During You’s initial court appearance, the prosecution laid out what they say was a campaign of abuse that led to the suicide death of Urtula, a biology major from Cedar Grove, New Jersey.
In the two months prior to his death, the couple exchanged more than 75,000 texts, of which You sent more than 47,000. A prosecutor said Urtula “felt trapped” in the relationship because You frequently threatened to harm herself if he didn’t do what she wanted him to do.
The prosecutor said the thousands of text messages “demonstrate the power dynamic of the relationship, how she owned him and that he was her slave. At one point he messaged her, ‘you own me.’”
She then went on to read some of the texts recovered from Urtula’s phone.
“Do everyone a favor and go (expletive) kill yourself. You’re such a stupid (expletive) worthless (expletive). Dude, just do everyone a (expletive) favor and go kill yourself, (expletive) worthless (expletive) piece of (expletive). You deserve nothing in the (expletive) world,” one text read.
Prosecutors also said the texts showed You was aware that what she was doing was criminal and threatened to kill herself and leave a suicide note so that her family would sue him.
The abuse became “more frequent, more powerful and more demeaning” in the days and hours leading up to Urtula’s death, according to Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins.
You was also allegedly aware of Urtula’s “spiraling depression” yet she still allegedly “persisted in encouraging him to take his own life.”
Urtula jumped from the roof of the Renaissance parking garage in Roxbury around 8:30 a.m. on May 20, Rollins said. His family was in town to watch him walk in the Boston College graduation ceremony that began that same day at 10 a.m.
You studied economics at the college before withdrawing from classes in August. She was scheduled to graduate in May 2020.
Her lawyers are expected to file the motion to dismiss in March.
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