Ex-Cape Cod Selectman Pleads Guilty To Second Assault

BOURNE, MA – A former Bourne selectman pleaded guilty to a second assault on his longtime girlfriend. Michael Blanton, 50, is currently serving a jail term after being convicted of assaulting the woman.

Blanton was found guilty in December of assault and battery on a household/family member, assault with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, intimidation of a witness and threatening to commit a crime following a two-day trial. He was arrested in February after his longtime girlfriend, Shannon Flynn-James, accused him of attacking her.

Flynn-James told police that during an argument about Blanton's infidelity, he grabbed her, smashed her head into the floor, held a baseball bat to her and threatened to kill her. At a dangerousness hearing, she told the court he grabbed her by the throat and threw her into a bathtub during an earlier attack.

Blanton pleaded guilty Tuesday to two counts of assault and battery on a household/family member and one count each of strangulation or suffocation and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon for the attack on Nov. 4, 2017, according to the Cape Cod Times.

He was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in the correctional facility, with nine months to serve, in both cases. The sentences will run concurrently, the Times reported.

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