Despite her injuries, Persaud's girlfriend didn't want to testify before a grand jury. That could have meant the end of the case. No testimony from a burn victim can mean no conviction.  Prosecutor Kessler suspected Persaud had been talking to his girlfriend from jail and intimidating her despite a protective order forbidding any contact.  Kessler has seen it before.  He says alleged abusers have been known to call their victims and persuade them to back off, but his office couldn't do anything about it. The Queens County district attorney's Domestic Violence Bureau was forced to dismiss about 70% of its cases due, in part, to intimidation. Kessler says the victims' fear is understandable.  "They're scared. The defendant has a lot of power, a lot of control," says Kessler. Often abusers are breadwinners and the victim has no way of supporting herself. "Her world comes crashing down and she doesn't know what to do," he adds.  In Persaud's case and others, Kessler went to Plan B. He decided to use Persaud's own words against him. Not a confession. But to Kessler, just as good, if not better.  He lobbied the Department of Corrections to record jailhouse phone calls. That enabled him to mine them to prove to the court that Persaud and others were intimidating their battered victims.  "I only got you, Ma, I only got you," Persaud pleads on the recorded call. "I did not kill nobody. ... What they're doing is illegal, you don't want to cooperate," he tells his burned girlfriend.  Sometimes, accused batterers get their children on the phone and work on them, too. "When Daddy come out, I'm going to buy you a PS3," Persaud tells one of his sons, referring to a video game console. "I love you more than the whole solar system," his son replies.  On the recordings obtained by CNN, Persaud tells his girlfriend, "I need you to prepare the kids to start lying so I could talk to them."  To use the tapes, Kessler is using a legal theory called forfeiture by wrongdoing.
Eric Persaud admitted it. He got so mad at his girlfriend that he seared her face with a hot iron. Prosecutors say she stuffed a towel in her mouth to keep from screaming."He told her if she screams...