Following an alleged brutal Halloween beating in 2009, the woman went to Family Court to get an emergency order of protection against David Johnson, a top aide to Governor David Paterson. The order was granted and, at a later date, extended. The extension was necessary because the woman, who has not been identified, was unable to locate Johnson to serve him with the order.

"He avoided it," the woman told Family Court Judge Andrea Masley on November 4.

Orders do not go into effect until they have been served.

The woman failed to show up for her third court appearance, and the case was dismissed. Johnson, incidentally, was never served.

The woman's experience in the courts - the reported intervention by the State Police and Paterson notwithstanding - was fairly standard, legal experts say. Criminal and Family Courts operate differently. Criminal proceedings are triggered by an arrest and when orders of protection are handed down, the suspect is usually in the court room.

Family Court orders, however, are initiated by the people filing the complaints - the alleged victims. That gives the victims more power and much more responsibility.

Johnson was not arrested the night of the alleged beating - he was gone when police arrived - and the charges he did face were eventually dropped. So Criminal Court was not an option for the woman in the Johnson case.

New York does have something called mandatory arrest in domestic violence cases, but that's more complex than it sounds, legal experts say. Certain criteria have to be met. If a suspect violates an order of protection while committing the alleged crime, for example, then he or she must be arrested. But there were no orders in place at the time of the alleged incident involving Johnson.

Even if there were a criminal case pending, the woman could have simultaneously pursued an order of protection through Family Court. It makes sense to do this, say legal experts, because the process tends to move faster in Family Court, and because people can, for the most part, set the terms of the order themselves.

"The order can provide for child support, for example," says Carla Palumbo, director of the civil division of the Legal Aid Society in Rochester.

Family Court also means that the woman in the Johnson case was responsible for making sure that Johnson was served with the protective order. She can use police, a process server, even a relative to do the serving.

"If he was never served with the order of protection and he violates it, he's going to argue that he didn't know," Palumbo says.

The judge in the Johnson case asked Johnson's attorney, William Madonna, if he would accept service of the order on his client's behalf. Madonna refused.

In Monroe County domestic violence cases, Palumbo says, the petitioner calls 911 after the temporary order is issued and the police do the serving. The victim is also referred to Alternatives for Battered Women and Legal Aid.

The temporary order can turn into a permanent order, if the victim pursues the case and the accused doesn't fight the move. If he or she decides to fight, there's a trial. Permanent orders last from three to five years.

The attorney general's office is investigating the Paterson administration's handling of the Johnson case to determine if the State Police or Paterson himself influenced the woman to drop the whole thing.

The psychology of domestic violence is tricky, Palumbo says. It takes, on average, seven attempts before the victim leaves the batterer for good, she says. The batterer often expresses remorse, Palumbo says, and promises to change - all the while chipping away at the victim's self-esteem and self-worth.

Over the last 10 years, she says, there's been a real push to make sure that victims aren't re-victimized by the system. If Paterson and the State Police did interfere in the Johnson case, Palumbo says, it flies in the face of all that progress.

"Part of the psychology of domestic violence is, 'the system isn't going to help you. No one's going to believe you,'" she says. "If what they're saying is true and somebody leans on her not to proceed, that just feeds into what she suspected: that he's a powerful person and she's never going to get away from him."