Berks man jailed for assaulting ex-girlfriend

NORRISTOWN >> A Berks County man is on his way to state prison for assaulting his former girlfriend at a Limerick residence.

David Gene Lord, 44, of the 1500 block of Mineral Spring Road, Reading, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to 2½ to five years in a state correctional facility after he pleaded guilty to felony charges of aggravated assault and witness intimidation in connection with a December 2015 incident at a home along Gerloff Road in Limerick. Judge Garrett D. Page, who accepted a plea agreement in the matter, also ordered Lord to have no contact with the victim during the course of his supervision.

An investigation began Dec. 1, 2015, when Limerick police were dispatched to Pottstown Memorial Medical Center to meet with a woman who required medical treatment after an assault. Police observed “heavy bruising about the victim’s eyes, sides of head and on the rear of her shoulders” and scratches on her neck, according to the criminal complaint.

“The victim advised that hospital personnel found the victim’s nose to be broken,” Limerick Police Officer Shawn Pancoast alleged in the arrest affidavit.

The victim told police that Lord assaulted her at a Limerick residence after he requested that they discuss their relationship.

“As they were talking, Lord became enraged and slapped the victim across her face with an open hand, back and forth several times alternating the hand he used,” Pancoast alleged. “Lord then picked up a roll of duct tape and threw it at her, hitting her in the upper chest area.”

As the victim tried to call 911 Lord grabbed the phone from her and smashed it on the ground, police alleged.

“Lord then grabbed the victim by her throat with both hands around her neck and started strangling her,” Pancoast alleged, adding Lord threw the victim to the ground and straddled her torso. “The victim stated that Lord strangled her three separate times in between when he began punching her in the head, first two times to the face and then to both sides of her head.”

The victim told police she could not breathe while she was being strangled and began to feel faint. During the course of the assault, Lord allegedly told the victim that “he was going to kill her right here and right now,” according to the arrest affidavit.

Lord eventually stopped the assault. After regaining her composure, the victim managed to flee from the residence to her car and to a friend’s home, court papers indicate.