Body camera footage shows cops arresting the heir to a sugar dynasty for domestic abuse at his home. According to police in Palm Beach, Florida, Alexander Nicholas Fanjul, 39, beat his girlfriend after she ordered him to stop being angry because they were recently seated next to a gay couple at a restaurant.
“I’ve been f—ing framed, man,” he stated on footage from the night of January 28.
Authorities partially censored and muted body camera footage from the scene, although an officer claimed he witnessed the attack.
“I went in because the door was cracked open, I heard them screaming, and he was standing over her,” the officer explained to a colleague.
“She had her purse on her,” he claimed. “He kicked her, threw her to the ground, and yanked it from her shoulder. She does not know where her purse or phone is.”
According to court documents, Fanjul choked the woman by the neck, and while she “did not fully lose consciousness,” she had difficulty breathing. An officer saw she had bruising and redness around her neck, which matched her account.
“I further observed the house to be in disarray upon my arrival on scene,” the report said. “There were drops and traces of blood leading from the doorway where the woman claimed she was taken all the way to the spot in the apartment where I saw Fanjul standing over the woman when I arrived. In addition, I saw chairs flipped upside down on the floor, out of place carpeting, and a variety of other random items that appeared to have been knocked over or tossed into the floor.”
The body camera shows several officers standing over Fanjul, who is shackled. When asked what he wanted, he said, “I would like to go to bed.”
Fanjul, the heir to his family’s sugar dynasty, was initially charged with false detention, petit theft, felony battery, and interfering with a witness, victim, or informant. On November 4, he pleaded guilty to petit theft, criminal mischief, and felony battery, with the court deferring judgement of the final allegation. He is currently serving four years on probation.