Judge bars father-to-be from fiancee

MOUNTAIN HOME — An Arkansas judge says a man accused of punching his pregnant fiancee in the abdomen must stay away from her for now but can be present when she delivers their child.

Circuit Judge Gordon Webb kept a no-contact order in place but said 20-yearold Ryan Anderson can be present for the baby’s birth. The woman had asked Webb to lift the protection order, but prosecutors who filed a second-degree battery charge objected, saying the crime was particularly violent.

“Some couples say, ‘Hey, we want to get back together,’ and there are times when a judge says that’s going to happen,” Prosecuting Attorney David Etheredge said Monday. “I probably err on the side of being cautious. Here he’s physically attacking her.”

Police arrested Anderson on June 29. The woman told an investigator that Anderson began yelling at her when she arrived home from work, but Anderson said the woman had yelled at him for not having a job and threw food at him.

Anderson’s lawyer did not reply to a phone message left Monday.

Court records show the woman would now be just more than seven months pregnant.

When asking for a protection order the day after Anderson’s arrest, the woman wrote: “he got into a physical disagreement with me (not the first time). … While I continually screamed for him to get away, he told me I should have died.”

She went back to court less than a week later and asked that the protection order be dropped.

Webb said the no-contact order remained necessary.

“The court will allow the defendant to be present for the birth of his child at the hospital only,” the judge noted in the court file after a hearing Thursday.