Man charged with choking girlfriend
21-year-old accused of holding gun to woman’s head
A Mt. Pleasant man is accused of strangling his girlfriend to where she said she nearly lost consciousness after holding a gun to the back of her head and threatening to shoot her.
The woman he is accused of assaulting herself pleaded guilty to aggravated domestic assault in a previous case.
Nathan Patrick Seeley, 23, was charged with three felonies and a misdemeanor following his Tuesday arrest by officers with the Mt. Pleasant Police Department.
Officers were called to the Crawford Street Apartments just after 11 a.m. by a complex manager who reported that a tenant was just assaulted by her boyfriend. Central Dispatch also advised officers that the boyfriend might have also pulled a gun on the 21-year-old woman.
During an interview at the police station, the woman told officers that she and Seeley are in a six-month relationship and live together.
The two argued on and off for three days, she told police. They started fighting on Tuesday morning over cigarettes.
She told police that she told him she was leaving for her grandmother’s house and that he blocked her for at least 30 minutes while she packed things.
She opened the window and tried to leave, and he grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the ground “hard as f**k,” she said, according to an affidavit in the criminal file.
The woman told police that Seeley told her she could hit him, so she jumped on his back and tried to wrap her arms around his neck and asked if he was done.
She again tried to get out of the window, but she said that Seeley dragged her to the bathroom. She said she hit him a couple of times to get him off her and then threatened to get an unidentified person to beat Seeley up.
Seeley grabbed a gun from a
coffee table and told her to call that person, making a gesture as if he intended to shoot that person, she told police.
She went to the bathroom, and Seeley put the gun up against the back of her head and said he should just shoot her, she told police. She told Seeley that him shooting her would be preferable to arguing with him all the time.
The woman made her way back to the window and started banging for help, she told police. Seeley then started to choke her with both hands from the front, so hard that she gasped for air six or seven times and feared for her life. She said he later also choked her from behind with his forearm against her neck.
She said that while she didn’t lose consciousness that she was light-headed and dizzy afterward, the affidavit said. The responding officer noted that she appeared to have finger impressions on either side of her neck.
Seeley was charged with assault with intent to do great bodily harm through strangulation, a 10-year felony; assault with a dangerous weapon, a four-year felony; using a gun while committing a felony, a felony that adds two years to the sentence for the underlying crime; and domestic violence, a 93-day misdemeanor.
The woman herself pleaded guilty to aggravated domestic violence Aug. 17, 2021, for an incident in May. She received a 40day jail sentence. That case is currently marked as under review.
Seeley’s next court appearance is a hearing on June 16 to determine whether enough evidence exists to bind him over to circuit court for trial.