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Last updated on Thursday, September 10, 2015
(BEDFORD) - A Sandborn man was sentenced by Superior Court Judge I Michael Robbins to 10 years on house arrest after pleading guilty to aggravated battery.
44-year-old Robert Eric Johnson was initially charged with battery with serious bodily injury at the time of his arrest, a Class C felony, in addition to strangulation, a Class D felony. The Class B felony of aggravated battery charge was added later. As part of the plea agreement, the two original charges were dismissed in exchange for Johnson pleading guilty to the most serious of the three charges.
Judge Robbins was reluctant in sentencing Johnson to house arrest because of the seriousness of the crime. But if he put him in jail, he would have no way to pay the victim's more than $23,000 medical bills. Which Judge Robbins ordered Johnson to pay at $300 a month.
Johnson now lives in Greene County, where he has a job with a construction company.
Judge Robbins ordered that Johnson be regarded as a high-risk offender and would be visited by community corrections personnel three times a week. He also ordered that active Global Positioning System monitoring would be in place for Johnson and the judge stressed that Johnson was to have no contact with the victim.
Johnson was arrested by Lawrence County police on October 31, 2013 after a warrant was issued for his arrest. The warrant was issued after a Lawrence County officer was called to the Indiana University Health Bedford Hospital emergency room after a woman was being treated in the emergency room for a broken jaw and broken facial bones. Her teeth had been knocked out and she suffered a broken collar bone. The woman told police that she and her boyfriend - Johnson - had been got into an argument at the Mitchell American Legion Post. They left together. But while she was driving them home, Johnson grabbed her around the throat. She then slammed on the brakes to get him to stop, which he did. Once arriving at the couple's home, the woman told Johnson she was going to pack her things and leave.That is when Johnson threw her to the ground and grabbed her face and choked her again.
The woman passed out, when she "came to", Johnson had a hold of her face and threatened to kill her and continued to beat her.
A witness then arrived at the house to find the woman and Johnson sitting on the porch. He asked the woman what happened to her and she said Johnson had beat her. He then drove the woman to the hospital.
The witness asked Johnson what had happened and he said the woman had tried to punch him and that she had tripped and fallen onto a go-cart belonging to another male witness.
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