Bail is set at $20,000 for a man accused of assaulting his girlfriend on Tuesday.
Eric Reuben King, 40, of Onalaska, was charged Wednesday, Dec. 11, in Lewis County Superior Court with one count of second-degree assault and two counts of fourth-degree assault. Each charge carries a domestic violence enhancement.
“I am concerned for community safety and I believe that bail is necessary to protect the community and also to prevent him from interfering with the administration of justice,” Judge J. Andrew Toynbee said during King’s preliminary hearing on Wednesday, expressing concern that King would seek to intimidate witnesses.
King was arrested and booked into the Lewis County Jail at 10:50 p.m. on Dec. 10, according to jail records, after deputies with the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office responded to a 911 call from a woman at a residence on Eshom Road.
“The caller … was calling to report the assault and told the 911 operator ‘He keeps hitting me,’” according to court documents.
King allegedly got into a verbal dispute with his girlfriend “because she recently received money from a legal settlement and King did not approve of how the money was being spent,” according to court documents. The argument began after the couple returned from a dinner where they both reportedly consumed alcohol.
King is accused of punching the woman repeatedly in the head and strangling her “to the point where she could not breathe,” according to court documents. The woman told responding deputies that “she was able to get King off her by biting his arm and forehead.”
Two witnesses, one of which was a 13-year-old boy, corroborated the victim’s account of the incident.
One witness reported hearing King “saying words to the effect of ‘this is my house’” while he was on top of the woman and holding her “in a choke hold,” according to court documents. The witness reported that the woman, who had an unrelated broken leg, “‘crawled’ out to her vehicle, which is where she believes she was able to call 911.”
The 13-year-old witness reported seeing King on top of the woman and hearing him say “‘go to sleep’ while he was strangling (the woman),” according to court documents. He told deputies “he believed King was strangling (the woman) because of how her voice sounded when she was trying to get King to stop.”
When contacted at the scene, King allegedly said the woman scratched and bit him during an argument that occurred in the kitchen while he was helping her up from the ground.
“King would/could not say how (the woman) came to be on the ground,” according to court documents.
The victim and two witnesses reported that the assault took place while the woman was on a couch in a different room.
Arraignment is scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 19.
A no-contact order protecting the victim is in place.
