Man charged with beer mug assault admits to strangling girlfriend

Man charged with beer mug assault admits to strangling girlfriend

(Geoff Liesik)


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VERNAL — A Fort Duchesne man already sentenced to federal prison for beating his girlfriend with a ceramic mug admitted Tuesday that he also tried to strangle the woman.

Rupert James Duncan, 29, pleaded guilty in 8th District Court to aggravated assault, a third-degree felony, and intoxication, a class C misdemeanor. Charges of domestic violence in the presence of a child, providing false information to police, and disorderly conduct were dismissed as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors.

The charges stem from an April 2013 incident where Duncan choked the woman outside the state liquor store in Roosevelt after employees told the woman she could not use her tribal ID card to buy a bottle of whiskey, according to a police report. Witnesses told police the attack happened in front of two small children.

Three months later, Duncan attacked the woman again, hitting her in the face with a large ceramic beer mug because she "smiled in his face while he was feeling sad," federal court records show. The force of the blow shattered the ceramic mug, sliced the 28-year-old woman's lip open in three places and knocked her to the ground.

Then, on Aug. 28, more than a month after the beer mug incident, Uintah County sheriff's deputies were called after a driver found the woman and her young son on the side of Diamond Mountain Road.

The woman told investigators Duncan hit her twice in the face and bit her arm during an argument about finances. He also threw a stone at the woman's head, hitting her and causing several broken bones in her face, charging documents state.

A federal grand jury indicted Duncan for the beer mug assault in September. He pleaded guilty to assault with a dangerous weapon while within Indian Country and was sentenced last week to serve 34 months in federal prison and 36 months under federal supervision after his release.

Duncan asked to be sentenced immediately after entering his guilty plea Tuesday for the assault outside the liquor store. Judge Clark McClellan imposed a zero-to-five-year prison term but suspended the sentence and said Duncan would serve it concurrently with his federal prison time.

Duncan still faces a jury trial later this year for the Diamond Mountain Road incident. Uintah County prosecutors have charged him with aggravated assault with serious bodily injury, domestic violence in the presence of a child and criminal mischief in that case. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison on the aggravated assault charge alone.

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