Man who battered, detained wife gets 35 years in prison

A 23-year-old Sherwood man who told police his estranged wife was clumsy and always hurting herself has accepted a 35-year prison sentence for beating the woman while holding her against her will overnight.

Sentencing papers filed Friday by deputy prosecutor Katie Hinojosa show Arpan Andrew Gohain pleaded guilty to kidnapping and first-degree battery in exchange for the 35-year prison term imposed by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims. He faced up to 40 years on the charges, both Class B felonies.

Under the terms of his plea agreement, negotiated by defense attorney Nick Dunn, prosecutors dropped a Class D felony charge of aggravated assault on a family member.

Gohain was arrested Nov. 20, 2018, about two days after Amber Leeann Hartness, bruised, bloody and shoeless, showed up at the Sherwood Police Department, where she told authorities how an argument with Gohain about ending their five-week marriage had turned violent.

The 26-year-old Hardy woman said that during the course of an hour, Gohain kicked her in the head, choked her and struck her on her spinal cord while threatening to disfigure her face. He punched her several times across her body, slammed her head into the wall and tried to shove her head in the toilet.

Hartness said she threw a small chair at Gohain and slapped at him but he had gotten a frying pan and swung it at her, striking her arms as she tried to block his blows.

At one point, Hartness said, she tried to get out of the apartment but Gohain took her house key and slammed the door shut, court filings show. She said she hit her face on the door.

After the fight, they left the apartment together to make a payment on their mattress, then returned and went to sleep, court filings show. Hartness said she got up the next morning and walked out of the apartment, leaving her shoes and cellphone behind, turning on the fan in the bathroom to cover the sound of her walking out the door.

She said she was afraid Gohain would kill her if she had tried to leave before.

While Hartness was talking to detectives, Sherwood police went to the couple’s home at New Brittany Apartments, 7603 Jacksonville Cut Off Road, because Gohain had called and reported her missing.

Gohain told police that Hartness had left the apartment a couple of hours earlier and hadn’t returned. He admitted that the pair had quarreled the night before but denied that any physical confrontation had taken place.

Hartness, already in the process of having the marriage annulled, formally divorced Gohain in April.