A Boston man is facing charges that he beat his pregnant girlfriend earlier this month in a dispute over a television remote control.
Corey Samuel, 36, of Dorchester, was charged Monday in the Roxbury Division of Boston Municipal Court with six counts of assault and battery of a pregnant woman and one count apiece of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and strangulation of a pregnant woman.
He was ordered without bail pending a dangerousness hearing on Wednesday.
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The victim, who is three months pregnant, told Boston police that on April 17, she and Samuel were watching television when he asked for the remote control. When she refused, he turned up the volume on his cell phone to drown out the television. The victim then gave Samuel the remote to avoid further confrontation.
Prosecutors said Samuel then threw the remote across the room and grabbed his girlfriend, twisting her wrist and forearm. She told police she hit him in the face to free herself from his grip, and he then hit her three times -- once in each eye and in the back of her head. She told Samuel to leave, but he continued his assault, punching her three times in the stomach, then in the right side of her ribs. She said he then put her in a chokehold for four to five seconds.
The victim left the room and asked a friend who had just pulled up in a car to help remove Samuel from the house, police said. When the friend tried to intervene, Samuel hit his girlfriend another three times in the nose and head and then lifted her into the air and slammed her to the ground. He then again attempted to reach the victim but her friend restrained him, allowing her to return to the house.
The attack left the victim with two black eyes, a bruised throat and bruises and scrapes on her right arm and right knee, prosecutors said.
Samuel is being represented by attorney Steve Kim. An email to his office was not immediately returned.
“Every act of domestic violence is intolerable and worthy of prosecution, but an attack like this, with repeated assaults on a pregnant woman, is particularly disturbing,” Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a statement.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HELP: Massachusetts provides this list of national, statewide and local resources for victims of domestic violence. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233. Anyone who is in immediate danger or knows someone who is is urged to call 911.
