Desperate cries from a Greensburg woman begging for help over the weekend prompted neighbors to call police, which led to the arrest of a Fayette County man.
City police responded after 11 p.m. Saturday to North Carpenter Street after receiving multiple of a woman screaming. Several residents in the vicinity of North Carpenter and the 700 block of West Otterman Street reported “a woman yelling for help in the street,” police said.
Patrolman Elliott Fejes reported that as he arrived, a witness flagged him down, saying a woman ran out of her home “screaming for police and a man came out and dragged her back into the house.”
After police surrounded the home, a “visibly distraught” woman came to the door and said she had been assaulted during an argument that turned physical, stating she had been hit several times and choked, Fejes reported. The woman had red marks on her face, Fejes said.
Mark J. Stants, 28, of Everson, told police that the couple were arguing about him wrecking his car that evening.
“Stants advised me that he did not get abusive with the victim and only pushed her,” Fejes wrote.
The woman said the argument turned into Stants attacking her. She told police she broke away after he began choking her in order to run outside and yell for help, at which point Stants pulled her back inside.
Police arrested Stants on multiple charges of harassment, simple assault and strangulation, according to court documents. He was released Sunday on $15,000 unsecured bond.
In 2019, Jeannette police charged Stants with burglary, criminal trespass and simple assault, but the burglary and assault charges were dropped as part of a plea bargain where he pleaded guilty to criminal trespass. He was placed on probation for a year, according to court dockets.
He also pleaded guilty in 2019 for a December 2018 arrest in Jeannette for unlawful possession of a weapon and received a probation sentence, according to court dockets.
Stants could not be reached for comment. An attorney was not listed in court documents.
