photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Shaleah N. Kauffman, left, is pictured with one of her attorneys, Anshul Banga, and Douglas County Judge Sally Pokorny on Tuesday, March 17, 2026.

In the state’s telling, Shaleah Kauffman is a violent domestic abuser who should be held accountable for the six crimes she has been charged with; in the defense telling, though, she’s the hapless victim of a controlling and abusive man.

Douglas County jurors will hear evidence over the next several days and decide which account they believe.

What they won’t hear is that Kauffman has two previous convictions in Douglas County for domestic battery from 2019 and 2022. Nor will they hear that the man in question was charged in July with domestic battery – a case that was dismissed due to insufficient evidence.

The presentation of evidence has not commenced, but jurors heard brief opening arguments, with testimony expected to begin on Tuesday morning.

Five publicly funded attorneys were seated in front of Judge Carl Folsom III on Monday – three for the prosecution and two appointed defense attorneys for Kauffman. That number is unusually high. Recent murder and rape trials, by comparison, have involved only two to four attorneys.

Kauffman is standing trial on the felony charges of domestic battery and aggravated battery after the man testified last spring at Kauffman’s preliminary hearing that Kauffman drunkenly attacked him two separate times in the fall of 2023. She is also facing misdemeanor charges of endangering a child, theft, criminal damage to property and violation of a protective order.

Those charges relate to Kauffman’s child and to the man’s truck, which she is accused of stealing and damaging. She is also accused of violating a protection order in the matter by contacting the man.

Prosecutor Britt Welch told the jury that the once-happy relationship “spiraled out of control” after Kauffman had given birth to the couple’s baby in August of 2023. A couple of months later Kauffman decided she needed a night out drinking, Welch said, and she hired a babysitter who was unknown to the man, who was at work. When she eventually came home, Kauffman was aggressive toward the man, throwing a pan at him while he held their newborn, then following him into another room, grabbing fistfuls of his hair and hitting him repeatedly, Welch said.

The next month, another argument occurred, and Kauffman again “wailed on” the man, bringing him to the ground and breaking his ankle, Welch said.

Defense attorney Anshul Banga, however, painted Kauffman as a fearful woman trapped in a relationship with a controlling and abusive man.

“Ms. Kauffman is not a monster,” he said.

Rather, he argued, the man sought control “over how Ms. Kauffman drinks.” His client, he said, was feeling “cooped up” and wanted to go out with friends to enjoy alcoholic beverages. She “responsibly” hired a babysitter instead of leaving the children alone, although she lied about the babysitter’s identity because she was afraid of the man, Banga told the jurors.

The fight that ensued that month and the next, he said, was due to the man’s anger and his desire to “exert control,” which he did by calling 911 but refusing several times to give an address and even telling the dispatcher “I think we’re OK.”

Banga also asserted that the man wasn’t really hurt, despite the “vicious” battering he had described to police. The “popped” ankle, Banga said, was the result of the man falling after laying hands on Kauffman, who was merely defending herself. The ankle injury, he said, was not treated until five full days after the man reported the incident to police.

Kauffman’s case, now three years old, was set to go to trial in June, but Kauffman’s court-appointed attorney, Michael Clarke, withdrew from the case on the eve of trial. The reason for the withdrawal was not clear. He asked Senior Judge Nancy Parrish to clear the courtroom so that he could privately explain his reasons for wanting off the case.

Defense attorney Razmi Tahirkheli was then appointed, to serve with Banga, and the case began anew.

The case is also on its third judge. It was originally presided over by Judge Sally Pokorny, who retired in April. Then Parrish handled several hearings, and now the matter is in Folsom’s courtroom. Pokorny gave the media permission to photograph the defendant at public hearings, but Folsom has not extended that permission to the trial and has banned photography.