Kidnap and assault charges are denied

A Springfield man is accused of choking and biting his girlfriend when she told him she was leaving him.


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Kidnap and assault charges are denied Rutland Herald | January 17, 2017 By ERIC FRANCIS CORRESPONDENT Andrew Hayes Andrew Hayes WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — A Springfield man is accused of choking and biting his girlfriend when she told him she was leaving him. Andrew Hayes, 20, pleaded not guilty Friday to felony counts of firstdegree aggravated domestic assault and kidnapping with intent to inflict bodily injury. He was ordered held without bail. He could face a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted. Defense attorney Jordana Levine told Judge Theresa DiMauro that Hayes lives on Social Security disability income that he receives due to “learning issues… and some developmental delays.” The alleged attacks came to light Thursday when Hayes’ 36-year-old live-in girlfriend walked into the Springfield Police Department “red in the face (with) swollen eyes as if she had been crying (and) stated that she had just been assaulted by her boyfriend,” Officer Logan DeFelice wrote in an affidavit. The woman told police Hayes initially got mad because she was on her phone talking to family members and “Hayes started yelling and grabbing for (her) phone.” She said she told Hayes “she was done and could not do this any more,” according to the court filing. The woman told police that as she tried to leave the room, Hayes grabbed her harshly, causing a great deal of pain, and pulled her back onto the bed before taking her phone away. When she repeated that she was leaving him and made the comment that “it was for the best,” police said, Hayes got on top of her, put his left arm around her neck and choked her to the point she could barely breathe. The woman said “it felt like he was sucking the air out of her,” DeFelice wrote. She said she bit Hayes and hit him in the chest in an effort to get away, police said, and Hayes then “grabbed her by the arm and started biting (her), which she stated caused her a pain of 8 on the pain scale.” The woman said she was able to free herself and run to her neighbor’s apartment, where she called a female friend to come and pick her up, DeFelice wrote. Hayes initially refused to come outside to speak with police, saying he had done nothing wrong and that his girlfriend “had bit herself, hit herself and that (she) was crazy,” police said. Hayes then showed police “a full bite mark” that was on his left arm along with several scratches “which appeared as if someone had been clawing at him,” DeFelice wrote. The officer added that the woman was examined at the police station and she had “bite marks on her right arm … several scratches on both of her arms and hands” and that “she had fake nails and that 7 out of 10 of them were jagged and broken off.” Through his attorney, Hayes told the court Friday that he’d grown up in nearby Charlestown, N.H., and had only been living on his own in Springfield for the past eight months, half of that time with his girlfriend. DiMauro rejected a request to allow Hayes to move back in with his mother in New Hampshire while his case was pending.