Adi Sambamurthy/The Bay Citizen

Eliana Lopez, wife of San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, outside of the courtroom where her husband pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor domestic violence charges on Jan. 19, 2011.

She told two neighbors that her husband, San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, had physically abused her.

She showed them what court documents describe as "the big, dark-purple bruise on her upper right bicep."

But Eliana Lopez refused to talk to police who wanted to question her about the incident.

Last week, Lopez told a judge that she was a strong, independent woman who did not fear her husband and was in no danger from him.

“I am 36 years old,” Lopez said. “I’ve been independent since I was 20 years old.”

Lopez told reporters after that hearing that the domestic violence charges are part of "a political game" by people who are trying to destroy her husband.

Prosecutors contend that Lopez's seemingly contradictory statements are evidence that has battered woman syndrome, and they plan to call a Berkeley Law lecturer, Nancy Lemon, to make that part of their case during Mirkarimi's trial, which is set to begin Feb. 24.

Mirkarimi switched lawyers on Wednesday. His new attorney, Lidia Stiglich, said in an email, "We whole-heartedly dispute" the prosecution's depiction of her client and Lopez. "Mrs. Lopez is not a battered woman, period," Stiglich wrote.

Cheryl Wallace, Lopez's attorney, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In court documents filed Monday, prosecutors said Lopez's actions, including her refusal to talk with police, "are typical of" domestic abuse victims. And they said that the incident exemplifies the "Cycle of Violence" and "Power and Control dynamics" that characterize domestic abuse cases.

The cycle, prosecutors wrote, begins with a period of increased tension, followed by an act of violence, which is then followed by a period of "forgiveness-seeking" on the part of an abuser. In the Mirkarimi case, they said, Lopez gave a "truthful account of the abuse," which Lopez said happened in front of the couple's 2-year-old son, Theo, "to her neighbors whom she trusts. Once the Defendant apologized and told her not to tell anyone, he whisks her away on a road trip with the son."

Prosecutors cite an email Lopez wrote to one of her neighbors during that trip to Monterey: "I'm realizing how serious it is and I have to be very smart to protect Theo and myself."

According to prosecutors, Lopez's decision to recant the allegations she made to her neighbors is not surprising. They cite testimony from an expert witness in another case who said that "eighty percent of women" who are assaulted later change their stories.

In the court papers, prosecutors wrote that a domestic violence victim "is most likely to relate an incident truthfully within 24 to 48 hours after an incident," explaining that victims tend to become less willing to cooperate with law enforcement as time passes because the "batterer or the batterer's family" may have convinced the victim to change his or her story.

Prosecutors wrote that Lopez "has not denied that [Mirkarimi] physically abused her." And, they said, because Mirkarimi told Lopez that he is "powerful," the pressure on her "to recant, minimize, and outright deny that anything happened is extreme."

Stiglich, Mirkarimi's attorney, vigorously disagreed with those arguments.

Prosecutors also want to use Lemon's testimony to shed light on Mirkarimi's behavior. "The public image of any accused, particularly of an elected public official, is often quite the opposite" of the defendant's private behavior, they wrote.

"[T]he private, dark side of an accused can co-exist with the groomed, public image established among colleagues and peers," the documents say. "An expert in domestic violence would illuminate how these two sides are not inconsistent with one another, like two sides of a coin."

Stiglich said the issues raised in the prosecution's motion "may have relevance in other cases before the court," but "they have absolutely no relevance here."

"Sheriff Mirkarimi is a loving husband, a doting father, a tireless public servant and a very decent person," she wrote.

Mirkarimi faces three misdemeanor charges: domestic violence battery, child endangerment and dissuading a witness. The last charge stems from the allegations that Mirkarimi tried to convince Lopez not talk to anyone about their argument. 

“That dissuasion, in fact, occurred and was in statements he made,” prosecutor Elizabeth Aguilar-Tarchi said during a hearing Thursday. "We’re not in the 1950s where things are brushed under the rug.”