N.H. man pleads innocent to Springfield assault over jewelry

A New Hampshire man pleaded innocent Thursday to charges he choked and punched his former girlfriend at her new apartment in Springfield over jewelry he had given her and wanted back.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100702/NEWS02/707029899/1003/NEWS02       # # # # N.H. man pleads innocent to Springfield assault over jewelry  •  Rutland Herald  •  By Susan Smallheer Staff Writer - Published: July 2, 2010  •  WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — A New Hampshire man pleaded innocent Thursday to charges he choked and punched his former girlfriend at her new apartment in Springfield over jewelry he had given her and wanted back.  •  Jason Whitcomb, 22, of Claremont, N.H., was charged with aggravated domestic assault, second degree, with injury, for the Wednesday evening incident.  •  If convicted, Whitcomb could be sentenced to five years in jail and fined $10,000.  •  According to affidavits submitted by Springfield police, Whitcomb had stopped at the Springfield police station, reporting that his former girlfriend had taken things from their joint storage locker in New Hampshire and he was in Springfield to retrieve them.  •  While Springfield police warned Whitcomb not to contact the former girlfriend if there was a court order against him, before the police could check on the New Hampshire order, Whitcomb left and went to his former girlfriend’s River Street apartment.  •  According to court records, Whitcomb tried to punch the woman, who had told him that the jewelry had been a gift and she wasn’t giving it back.  •  A friend, January Bresett, who had driven Whitcomb to the former girlfriend’s apartment, tried to get between them and stop the attack, but Whitcomb reached around and grabbed the woman’s neck, punched her in the back of the head and pulled her hair, court records stated.  •  The woman called police, who arrived and arrested Whitcomb.  •  The woman had obtained a court order in Claremont against Whitcomb on May 4, ordering him to have no contact with her.  •  According to the Springfield police officer who went to the woman’s apartment, Whitcomb had told him that he “has an anger problem and that he just wanted his things back.”  •  He also told the arresting officer “he needed help with his anger.”  •  Eric Lopez, the Windsor County deputy state’s attorney, asked Judge Theresa DiMauro that Whitcomb be ordered to have no contact with and to not harass his former girlfriend or Bresset.  •  According to court records, Whitcomb lives with Bresett, her daughter, and another woman at Bresett’s apartment.  •  Whitcomb’s court-appointed lawyer, Elizabeth Kruska, said that Bresett was simply a friend of Whitcomb’s and not a romantic friend, and if Whitcomb was ordered by the court not to have any contact with her, he would essentially be homeless.  •  Lopez said he was worried that Whitcomb would get angry at Bresett for trying to intervene in the incident.  •  But the judge said Bresett was free to have Whitcomb move out if she felt uncomfortable.  •