John Michael Farren, a former top attorney to President Bush, is accused of beating his wife with a flashlight and trying to strangle her inside their New Canaan home.
A panic alarm went off at the couple’s Wahackme Road home on Wednesday, police said. As police were on their way to the house, a resident of Weed Street called 911.
The called said a woman at the house had gotten into a domestic dispute and was injured.
The woman, Farren’s 43-year-old wife, had passed out during the attack Wednesday night at their New Canaan home but regained consciousness and fled with her children, police said.
The alleged attack happened two days after Mary Farren delivered divorce papers to him, according to the arrest affidavit.
She was in stable condition at Norwalk Hospital with a broken nose, a broken jaw and other injuries.
Her husband's attorney, Eugene Riccio, declined to comment.
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Farren, 57, was charged with strangulation and attempted murder. He was arraigned on Thursday and held on $2 million bond.
Farren, who was born in Waterbury, work for President George W. Bush and President George H.W. Bush. In 2007, President George W. Bush named Farren Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President, according to a White House personnel announcement.
Before that, he served as deputy campaign manager for the Bush-Quayle Re-election Committee and deputy director of President George H.W. Bush's Transition.
While in Connecticut, the UConn law grad worked for a New Haven law firm and the Waterbury Chamber of Commerce. The former Republican State Chairman, Richard Foley, says Farren interned under him 30 years ago in Naugatuck. Foley described Farren as a motivated man with a temper.
"He was very uptight and had some intensity to him. He also was known to have a bit of a temper," said Foley.
The New Canaan Police Department Investigators are in the process of executing a search warrant at the residence where the incident took place.
