Man sentenced for assaulting his pregnant girlfriend
A Hot Springs man was sentenced to three years in prison Tuesday for assaulting his pregnant girlfriend last year.
Harley Charles Brown, 28, who has remained in custody in lieu of $25,000 bond since his arrest Nov. 20, 2016, pleaded guilty to third-degree domestic battery with his sentence to run concurrently with a three-year sentence for the revocation of his probation from a 2015 battery conviction for shooting his former wife in the eye with a BB gun.
Brown was also ordered to pay $420 in court costs and permanently barred from any future contact with the victim.
According to the affidavit, on June 20, shortly after 6:30 p.m., a witness told Hot Springs police he saw a white male, later identified as Brown, fighting a female in the West Grand Avenue median.
Officers found the victim lying in the roadway in the eastbound lane of West Grand and noted she was dirty, distraught and sobbing uncontrollably. She told them she wanted to be left alone and started walking west in the middle of the road until officers helped her to the median.
Officers noticed she was holding her stomach and she told them she was pregnant.
LifeNet was requested to the scene to examine the victim.
She stated she and Brown, the father of her unborn child, had got into an argument at a residence on Ward Street. She said she became upset and left the residence on foot, but Brown followed her. They stopped at the median of Grand Avenue and Third Street where Brown had pushed her to the ground. She said she was not able to brace herself and struck her stomach on the ground.
The witness told police Brown was walking down Fourth Street. They located him at Fifth and Ward Streets and after he was positively identified by the witness as the suspect he had seen fighting with the victim he was arrested.
When questioned, Brown admitted knowing the victim and that she was four months pregnant. He also noted the child “could possibly be his.”
It was determined Brown was on probation from his conviction on Aug. 17, 2015, for second-degree domestic battery stemming from his arrest on April 22, 2015, for shooting his wife in the eye with a BB.
According to the affidavit, on April 6, 2015, Brown’s former wife filed a report with police stating Brown had been verbally abusive to her and then pointed a BB gun about an inch from her face and shot her in the right eye.
The BB entered her eye and was floating in her orbital socket and required surgery to remove. Brown was sentenced to five years’ probation at the time of his conviction.