Posted at 5:00 a.m.
Amy Kaufman is a survivor of domestic violence.
Survivor: the word is not too strong.
For a year, her partner, Jonah Keri, beat her. The physical abuse followed a cycle of coercive manipulation, where Keri took control of the young Montrealer’s life.
Born in Montreal, Jonah Keri was a prominent sports journalist in North America, specializing in baseball, author of a remarkable book on the Expos, the team of his childhood.
On the outside, Keri was a “good guy”, likeable, charismatic and affable.
But in private he was a violent tyrant.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, ARCHIVES LA PRESSE
Jonah Keri, in January 2022
Keri’s arrest (in July 2019) and his trial (which ended when he pleaded guilty in August 2021) made the rounds across North America.
Amy Kaufman only revealed her identity last March after Keri was sentenced to 21 months in prison by Judge Alexandre Dalmau at the Montreal courthouse.
“If it can happen to me, the Montrealer told me, it can happen to anyone. And it happens to anyone. My mother said of me that I was so strong that no guy would ever dare to touch me. And I often said that if a guy raised his hand on me, he would wake up at Urgel Bourgie…”
Amy had only had healthy relationships, she says, with no stories of control or violence.
Then, her mother died, a big upheaval in Amy’s life. This young woman, confident and strong, has lost a point of reference in her life, she has momentarily become more fragile. More vulnerable.
That’s when Jonah Keri – then a friend of Amy’s brother, CJAD host Dave Kaufman – exploited this vulnerability, like stepping into the door, to keep it from closing…
“It was like coming out of a romantic movie…
“From a romantic film?”
“He was perfect. Attentive, attentive, generous…”
Jonah Keri lived in Denver, Colorado, where he shared custody of his two children with their mother. And he was traveling across America covering baseball. But he always found time to call Amy in Montreal.
“He called me nine, ten times a day, even though he was busy, even though he was covering the World Series. He had flowers delivered to me. He listened to me, he listened to me so attentively… He talked about me, about my deceased mother in his podcasts. I was the most amazing thing in the world…”
Then one day Keri said to her, “I’m going to come live with you, I’m going to work from Montreal, I’m going to hire you for my podcasts, you’re so talented, I need you, we can be together All the time… ”
“I was amazed,” Amy said. I had already mentioned the idea of going to live in Colorado. It was impossible for me to imagine him coming to live in Montreal: he had two children in Denver…”
I repeat what I wrote in the penultimate paragraph, Jonah Keri’s words to Amy: “I’m going to come live with you. »
It wasn’t a question, it wasn’t an offer, it was an affirmation. It was also something like the beginning of Jonah Keri’s toxic control over Amy’s life: he also told her that she would have to close her small business to work with him. What she did. And what made her financially dependent on Keri.
Slowly, subtly, the control began.
Amy had dinner with some girlfriends?
Jonah Keri offered to drive her to the restaurant… to finally impose himself at the table, delighting the guests with his anecdotes about the North American sports jet-set, a friendly center of attention.
But at home, when he was irritated, he became violent. “Objects were thrown, Amy said, doors were slammed…”
Then there was the fall of Harvey Weinstein, there were the denunciations of the #metoo movement. A few months later, Jonah Keri began to change. “He told me he was afraid his name would come out,” recalls Amy. He said to me, ‘One day there was this girl, it didn’t go well, she might have misunderstood my intentions…'”
Then, another confession, another denunciation that he feared, another girl who would have “misunderstood”…
(Jonah Keri’s name has been associated with denunciations from the #metoo movement, but after he was arrested by Montreal police. Women have testified to American media that they suffered his sexual misconduct over the years. )
Amy: “It was there, that fall, in 2017, that I started asking myself questions…”
Questions in the form of a small voice in his ear, the voice of doubt, a very weak voice, a whisper. “I remember after the Roger Waters concert at the Bell Center in October 2017, I literally wrote on a piece of paper, to myself: ‘This relationship is the greatest leap of faith in my life, I hope it’s not a mistake…”
A few months later, in the spring of 2018, Amy was pregnant. In July 2018, Amy Kaufman and Jonah Keri got married.
After the onset of pregnancy, before the wedding, the beatings began.
The video sends shivers down my spine. It was a surveillance camera that captured her, in the summer of 2018, in the elevator of the building where Amy Kaufman lived with Keri, before their marriage. It was part of the evidence presented at Keri’s trial.
Amy enters the elevator. Keri follows her and butts her on the nose. She collapses. He leaves the elevator to return immediately, when Amy gets up. He presses his face to hers, grabbing her, as if kissing her…
But Keri does not kiss her: he bites her in the face.
And Keri comes out of the elevator again, before storming back in, slapping Amy and spitting on her.
The sequence lasts 19 seconds, it is terrifying. It is even more, terrifying, when you know that at that time, Amy Kaufman is pregnant. It was a few days before their wedding.
The elevator episode is just one of the attacks suffered by Amy Kaufman between July 2018 and July 2019, the time period covered by Keri’s recorded plea to end the trial.
The beatings were numerous and brutal. I quote Judge Alexandre Dalmau, on March 23, when he sentenced Jonah Keri to 21 months in prison: “Mr. Keri hit his victim on the knees, hit her on the head and on the ears, pushed, dragged her, slapped her, bit her, spat in her face, headbutted her, shook her, pulled her hair, grabbed her by the shoulders threatening to throw her from the balcony […]he took a knife and threatened to pull the baby out of her womb…”
In the interview, Amy goes into the details of the attacks, she recalls the time when Keri began to strangle her in their new house, in July 2019.
“I managed to free myself,” she told me. I was terrified. I went upstairs, googled words about a boyfriend strangling you… and found that when a spouse strangles you – unsuccessfully – your risk of being a victim of femicide explode 800%1. »
She then made the decision to leave and file a complaint. With her eyes glued to those stats, she now knew that staying with Keri brought her one step closer to death.
READ TOMORROW: Why did she stay? For a very simple reason…