Why did he attack you? Anthony Fasano physically attacked me on the evening of July 4, 2019. On July 5, the pain from the attack was obvious. I’ve had muscle pain before. This wasn’t that. So off to urgent care I went. It would be the first time I’d hear of the possibility of a cartilage tear, though it wouldn’t be diagnosed till later, and the first time I was asked, “Well, why did he attack you?”
I’ll admit. At first, I was beyond irritated. Why the hell does it matter why he attacked me? As time passed, I would get the question a lot. From family, friends, coworkers, doctors, people that would see me walking with a walker after surgery.
I began to understand. Part of it was human curiosity. Yet a larger part, I think, is people wanting to explain how you can be at a family gathering and suddenly a grown man decides he’s going to kill you. It’s scary how easily the switch flipped.
Asking the question, “Why Did He Attack You?” seems to be normal. For those people who are close to Anthony it seems to be about victim shaming/blaming. They want to blame me. They want it to be my fault. I mean, Anthony’s sister, Laura Fasano, just accused me very publicly of faking the injury I sustained during the attack. People that are close to him don’t want this to be true or talked about in public. The question from them seems to be about placing blame on the victim. It’s hard to hear this, but I’ll just point to the fact that it’s public knowledge that he plead guilty to the crime and even admitted to his recent probation violations.
For those that don’t know him it’s hard to think that a grown man can just decide to lose his temper and the outcome is surgery. The picture is gross, but this is what my leg looked like after surgery that placed 4 anchors in my hip. This was a direct result of Anthony attacking me. There must be A REASON. They want to dissect what I did. What I didn’t do. What did I say? Etc?
I do think it’s an innocent question. Most don’t mean any harm by it. They are stunned to hear it happened. They are curious. And it’s just outside of their experience. So, they ask. I get it. However, how it comes across is different. In a nutshell, being asked “Why did he attack you?” is like asking “What did you do to deserve this?”
I’m not trying to hide so I’ll tell you what happened. It’s simple. Anthony Fasano was upset because we were discussing plans for him and my sister to watch my mom’s dogs for a week in October. It was for a vacation we later had to cancel, because of my injury. He was MAD because now after agreeing to it, he wanted to go fishing in Florida. My mom, though rightfully irritated, was like fine I’ll make other plans for the dogs. He was sitting in the living room grumbling about being there. You should READ the texts he sent right before he attacked me. I have them. The things he says. It’s gross. I was sick of his grumbling, stood up, opened the door and said something like, “If you don’t want to fucking be here, then just go home.”
That’s it. If you don’t want to fucking be here then just go home. To be honest, I don’t remember saying the f-word, but I probably did. That sounds more like me. I’m definitely not an angel.
That’s what set him off. That’s why he attacked me. That’s why he threatened to kill me. People don’t want to hear this. They want the excuses. Oh and believe me, Anthony has PLENTY of excuses. I’ve heard many of them. It was the alcohol mixed with his medication, it was the medicine, it was that he was never diagnosed as ADHD. Later when he threatened to kill me in Oct 2019 and in Dec 2019 when he threatened to bury my family in an email sent from Union Pacific it was too much caffeine or maybe it was that he misdiagnosed as ADHD? You can get lost in the long list of excuses.
Yes, I could have shut up that day. I could have ignored his grumblings about not wanting to be there. I didn’t. That was my choice. I fully 100% stand behind it. However, there’s no dirt or big reveal. There’s nothing that warranted him putting his hands on me. Nothing that warranted him putting his keys to my throat. Nothing that makes the death threats understandable. On that day or in Oct or in December.
I think most rational people will understand. Speaking up and telling someone they can go home if they’re not happy is not what caused the attack. Yes, it is what happened, but it’s not the cause. Which, is what I think people want.
I’ll never be able to fully explain WHY Anthony Fasano attacked me. I can’t answer for him, however, looking back the violence fits up with the Anthony Fasano that I know. At the time, the attack surprised me. I have never been physically attacked like that before. I never imagined something like that happening at one of our family dinners. It just didn’t match our life experiences. However, in some ways it shouldn’t have been a surprise. See there were red flags. Too many to list, but two that really stand out:
- Red Flag # 1: In 2017 most of my family was on vacation in North Carolina. Anthony Fasano was with my sister visiting his family in New York. We got a call that there had been some sort of physical altercation at his mom’s house in front of the kids. (Remember this as it’s eerily similar). Instead of heading back to Iowa, we invited them to head south and stay with us on our vacation, which they did. Anthony Fasano told us his sister, Laura Fasano, had physically attacked him, but that she was claiming he attacked her. Troublesome, but we moved on from it and focused on other things.
- Red Flag #2: In 2018, there was an incident when Anthony Fasano was on vacation with my sister. I will never forget the nightmare of that day. I was called to handle the situation. When I called my sister with an update, Anthony was in a full-blown screaming and throwing fit that lasted the entire day. He got on the phone and I asked him to calm down, because my sister was very pregnant at the time. For some reason, this pissed him off and he threatened to beat up me and my brother. I was stunned. It was out of nowhere. My brother wasn’t even aware there was an issue, but for some reason Anthony wanted to beat him up. In multiple calls, I could hear Anthony screaming, throwing things, and hear beer bottles being broke. I was so scared for my sister and unborn nephew that day. There’s more to this story, but for now it’s enough to know that he threatened to physically attack me on that day as well.
So, for me, even though it was a shock that Anthony Fasano attacked me. That he grabbed me by the shirt and held keys to my throat threatening to kill me. It wasn’t really a surprise. He’d shown signs of this in the past. However, MOST of us don’t expect family dinner to turn into an injury that requires 4 anchors put into your hip.
You don’t have to trust my judgement of who Anthony Fasano is as a person. Watch the video where I read his texts out loud. Listen to his own text messages. There’s violence. There are threats. There are statements that make me believe he believes he is better than we are. There is racism. I don’t understand it any better than you. I can’t tell you why a grown man thinks it’s okay to be this violent. I don’t know. He does though.
I’m writing this just to give you a peak into what a victim of a crime has to deal with. I’m not embarrassed to talk about how Anthony Fasano attacked me. It’s on him. It’s not on me. It’s a reflection of his character. There will always be people who want to silence me. People who want this to disappear. However, it’s important to discuss the experience a victim has. Other victims need to hear that it’s okay to stand up for yourself. It’s okay to push back at society when they ask, “well, why?”
It’s okay to say, it doesn’t matter WHY he attacked me. What matters is that he did. Nothing I did or said gave that man the right to lay his hands on me or my mother. Because let’s not forget, I am not the ONLY person Anthony attacked that day. To me at least, there’s never going to be an excuse that explains why it happened.
As a side note, speaking up has a cost. His sister, Laura Fasano, has now taken up the crusade of calling out the morality of my family. She has posted lies on my Facebook page going as far as to accuse me of faking my injury. I left her posts, because I want to people to see that victims get blamed. That it’s not just the attacker, but their family and friends that you sometimes must worry about. See them below if you’d like. (Edit: I guess some people can see the comments others can’t so I will link to them and post one of the MANY attacks in a picture form. There were 53 comments on the post so I only pictured one. )
I’m strong. I’ll weather these attacks. Be clear though, as a victim I shouldn’t have to put up with this. However, I want those who haven’t had this experience to understand the way your character is attacked. You can’t stand up for yourself without becoming a target. However, I’m no longer standing up for just me. I’m standing up for all victims. I want this to be a voice. A blog. A podcast. Where we stop hiding the ugly side of justice. Where we tell those who haven’t experienced what it’s like to put up with the character assassination from your attacker and even his family and friends. What it’s like to deal with this.
I spoke. That’s my story. I spoke up and Anthony Fasano attacked me because of it, much like his sister is attacking me and my family on Facebook. I spoke, that’s why, I was attacked by Anthony Fasano.
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