A trial date was set Friday in the domestic assault case against veteran Boston Bruins forward Milan Lucic.
Lucic, 35, was arrested in November of 2023 for assault and battery on an intimate partner following an incident at his Boston apartment and pleaded not guilty at his arraignment several days later. He has been on an indefinite leave of absence from the team since that time.
At a pretrial hearing on Friday, Lucic's attorney requested a bench trial, waiving his client's right to a jury trial. The judge set the trial date as Feb. 16, at 9 a.m. Lucic, who remains free on personal recognizance bail, appeared remotely at Friday's hearing via a Zoom call and didn't speak other than to test his microphone for courtroom officials.
According to a police report provided to NBC10 Boston by sources, officers responded to Lucic's residence in the early morning hours of Nov. 18 after a woman called 911 saying her husband had attempted to choke her. Police said the woman later identified her husband as Lucic.
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According to the police report, Lucic was upset over a cellphone and at one point, he allegedly grabbed his wife's hair and pulled her back, telling her she wasn't going anywhere.
Lucic's wife told police that during the night, her husband could not locate his phone after returning to the apartment after a night out. She said he began yelling at her, demanding his phone back, believing she had hidden it. She told him she didn't have his phone and didn't know where it was. That's when the assault occurred.
When asked by police if Lucic had strangled her, she reportedly said no.
Officers said Lucic appeared intoxicated, telling them "nothing had happened" but refusing to explain any further. He was then arrested.
Police said they saw a broken lamp on one of the nightstands inside the apartment and what appeared to be a small amount of broken glass on the floor.
Although the maximum penalty Lucic faces is 2-1/2 years in prison and a $5,000 fine, NBC10 Boston legal analyst Michael Coyne has said it likely won’t come to that.
“Since it is a close family member, what often times happens is they reconcile, move to counseling and the witness doesn’t testify," he said.
Lucic is a veteran of over 1,300 NHL games with the Bruins, Los Angeles Kings, Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames. He won the Stanley Cup with Boston in 2011 and is back with the team after signing a one-year free agent contract last summer worth $1 million with $500,000 in possible additional incentives.
