ANDOVER — A 65-year-old grandfather faces assault and battery charges for allegedly getting drunk and hitting at least two of his three grandchildren during a stay in a local hotel.
But the court-appointed defense attorney for Robert Weber, of Grampian, Penn., said yesterday the children ages 9, 10 and 13 were out of control while at the La Quinta Hotel Saturday night and Sunday.
In fact, she noted that Weber called police Sunday morning for advice on how to handle the children when they refused to get in his car for a planned two-week vacation in Pennsylvania.
When Sgt. Edward Guy III and Officer Steven Gerroir arrived at the hotel at 131 River Road about 5:48 a.m., they found Weber in the lobby and said he appeared to be drunk.
The officers found the children in the lobby and they told the officers that Weber had struck the 9-year-old girl on the legs with a belt as she lay under the covers in her bed, and grabbed the 13-year-old boy by the neck and struck him twice in the arm, police said.
The officers arrested Weber and charged him with assault and battery on a household member and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, police Lt. James Hashem said yesterday.
Hashem said Weber and the children were brought to the station, and the state Department of Social Services was notified.
When DSS refused custody of the children, they were returned to their mother, Jeanette Weber, 32, of Lawrence.
Robert Weber was released Sunday and ordered to return to Lawrence District Court yesterday for his arraignment.
During his arraignment, Weber was taken into custody in the courtroom when Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Kunsch told Judge Michael Brooks there would be a question of bail.
Kunsch asked Brooks to set $2,500 cash bail, citing the fact Weber lives out of state, has served time on a harassment charge and has a conviction for drunken driving.
Kunsch told the court when one of the children tried to call for help, Weber ripped the phone out of the wall.
Pamela Saia-Rogers, the court-appointed lawyer for Weber, told the court he was a lifelong resident of the community where he lived, and operated a small egg business.
She told the court he is disabled from a 2001 workplace injury and takes several medications.
She reminded the court it was Weber himself who called police.
"It was my client who asked the police to come to the hotel. He drove himself here today," Saia-Rogers said.
She said the children had been unruly all night, running up and down the hallways and making noise, and that when he walked down to his car Sunday morning with some items, they locked him out of the room.
"He's never had a problem with his grandchildren before," Saia-Rogers said.
She disputed the claim the phone cord was pulled from the wall, saying there was no report of damage from the hotel.
She asked the court to release Weber without bail, but Brooks set $500 cash bail. It was not immediately clear whether he would be able to post it after the arraignment.
Sitting in the living room of her Lawrence apartment yesterday afternoon, Jeanette Weber said her father-in-law blames her for the fact his son Lance is serving a sentence at the Essex County Correctional Alternative Center on Marston Street in Lawrence.
She said police responded to a domestic dispute at their home and found a gun when they arrived, and arrested Lance Weber on a charge of possession of a firearm without a firearms identification card.
She said the couple and their children lived in Pennsylvania for six years and returned to the area two years ago.
"He (Robert Weber) was always threatening to take the kids. I won't give him my address because he harasses me constantly," she said.
She said Weber tried to take the children away from her by telling authorities they were homeless and lived in a car, and that she was not a good parent.
The 13-year-old boy described a scene in the hotel room where Weber would take a beer from the honor bar in the room and go into the bathroom and drink it, then come out and yell at them for talking.
At one point, Weber became enraged and threw a chair at the bureau, breaking a piece off it, and later told the hotel manager the kids did it, the boy told police.
Jeanette Weber said in spite of the hostility between her and her father-in-law, she wanted her children to be able to have a relationship with him.
"All I asked was that there be no drinking, and he apparently could not manage to leave the state without making a mess out of it," she said. "I was trying to be the bigger person and give him the benefit of the doubt."
Now, she said, there is absolutely no way he will have visitation with the children by himself ever again.
Brooks ordered Jeanette Weber's address not released during the arraignment.
Weber was ordered to return to court on Aug. 19.
