- "My father would take me to work with him after school sometimes. His office was in the basement. My father would leave the room, and Mr. Lindgren would come in. He'd tell me to lie on the couch and then he would rape me."
- —Bonnie Winterbottom during her testimony[src]
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Lindgren was a sexual assault trial happened in 2002, before the events of the show. Louis Lindgren, a councilman with a wife and children, was accused of raping Bonnie in the basement of City Hall while her father, Robert Winterbottom, worked there. Bonnie pressed charges against him after seeing his face on the TV and having flashes of memories from the abuse from the early 1990s.
Case[]
Early in the trial, Bonnie takes the stand and explains that she was 14 when she was raped by the councilman. She explained that her father put her in his office in the basement of City Hall where the councilman would enter and rape her, along with dozens of other men. She tells the court that the abuse ended when she got pregnant, however, as she was being raped by multiple men she had no idea who the father was, nor does she know what happened to her baby once she gave birth.
During recess, Bonnie sits outside when her attorney goes up to her and tells her that she did a good job testifying. After, Annalise crosses Bonnie. Annalise asks why she waited so long to tell people what had been happening to her. Bonnie says that she was very young and her father threatened to murder her and her sister if she told anybody. Next, Annalise questions Bonnie's memory. She asks how she knows that it was the councilman that raped her and Bonnie responds that she remembered that it was him when she saw him on the TV. She didn't remember him before as she doesn't like to think about what had happened to her when she was younger. Next, she questions the existence of her child that supposedly died. Annalise then gets Bonnie to admit that there is a chance that the baby might not have existed.
It is revealed by Annalise in a scene outside the courtroom that she won the case. She was pressured by her partner Hugh Murphy into being direct during her cross because if they lost the case he would fire her.
See also[]
Appearances[]
| Season 4 | |||||||||||
| "I'm Going Away" | "I'm Not Her" | "It's for the Greater Good" | "Was She Ever Good at Her Job?" | ||||||||
| "I Love Her" | "Stay Strong, Mama" | "Nobody Roots for Goliath" | "Live. Live. Live." | ||||||||
| "He's Dead" | "Everything We Did Was For Nothing" | "He's a Bad Father" | "Ask Him About Stella" | ||||||||
| "Lahey v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania" | "The Day Before He Died" | "Nobody Else Is Dying" |