Police allege man assaulted woman, child

Sheldon Allen, 29, faces 11 criminal counts for alleged domestic assault

Police were alerted by the county Office of Children and Youth that a domestic assault occurred on March 5.

TOWAMENCIN >> A 29-yearold Towamencin man was taken into custody and arraigned Wednesday morning on 11 criminal counts for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend and a 4-year-old child during a domestic altercation, according to police.

Sheldon Taylor Allen, of the 1100 block of Welsh Road, has been charged with four counts of misdemeanor simple assault, as well as multiple misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment, unlawful restraint and harassment and one count of misdemeanor possessing an instrument of crime.

Towamencin police said in a criminal complaint that on Tuesday, they were alerted by a case worker with the Montgomery County Office of Children and Youth that a domestic assault had reportedly occurred on March 5.

According to court documents, Allen’s girlfriend said that Allen had been drinking and began arguing with her, and she dumped out the contents of his bottle of booze. Angered, Allen allegedly grabbed her by the throat and threw her down onto her 4-year-old child. The child began to cry hysterically, and Allen’s girlfriend tried to throw Allen’s bottle at him, but Allen grabbed it and hit the child in the face, then grabbed his girlfriend by the throat again and threw her on the bed, the complaint states.

Allen then threw his girlfriend into a television and allegedly shouted at her, “(Expletive), you broke my TV,” then dragged her out of the room and into his roommate’s bedroom, at which point another man inside the residence intervened and stopped the assault, according to court documents.

The woman had bruises on her neck and other unspecified injuries to her eye, lips, neck, chest, arms, legs and back, and the child had a cut on the left side of the noise “consistent with being struck by an object,” the complaint states.

At Wednesday morning’s preliminary arraignment before Lansdale District Judge Edward Levine, Allen protested that the details of the assault were “exaggerated.”

Levine set Allen’s bail at $50,000 cash and ordered him committed to Montgomery County Correctional Facility.

A preliminary hearing is set for March 21.