CLEARFIELD – An assault case against a Lawrence Township police officer will be added to the trial list.
At a preliminary hearing Wednesday afternoon, Magisterial District Judge James Hawkins ruled that there was enough evidence to bind charges simple assault and harassment and stalking to court against Matthew Houser, 29, of Clearfield.
Court documents filed in the case allege that at about 1 a.m. on March 3, a verbal argument between Houser and a DuBois woman happened in a parking lot at Clearfield Hospital. That argument, according to the papers, states that Houser struck the woman.
The woman gave a state police investigator a written statement and also told him that Houser struck her after she kicked his truck.
When the woman testified before Hawkins Wednesday, though, her story was different.
She said Houser never hit her on that night.
“Sometime after midnight, did someone strike you?” asked Clearfield County District Attorney William A. Shaw Jr. when she testified.
“No,” the woman said.
“No one struck you?”
“Nope.”
The woman was granted immunity in exchage for her testimony in the case, meaning that the statements she makes cannot be used against her should information she provides reveal that she did something illegal.
The woman further said that the statement she gave to police was incorrect. “I felt very intimidated,” she testified. “I felt pressure.”
She then admitted that she gave state police “a false statement.”
Shaw then called into question treatment she received at DuBois Regional Medical Center’s emergency room for an arm injury.
“I said that me and my boyfriend got in an argument, and they took it the wrong way,” she said.
“He did not strike me.”
Upon cross-examination, Houser’s attorney, Stephen Greenberg, asked whether she believed she was threatened and whether that is why she made her original statement.
“I felt that’s what I had to say,” she responded.
She said she knew she damaged Houser’s truck and she believed that if she did not make a statement, she would be arrested.
Trooper Svin Donaldson, the officer investigating the case, then testified, stating that Houser admitted to striking the woman once after she allegedly struck him.
Donaldson said he also executed a search warrant for the woman’s medical records from the DRMC visit. Those documents showed that the woman was seen at 6:21 p.m. on March 3. The woman spoke with a nurse who wrote: “alleged assault with fists by ex-boyfriend.”
Donaldson also testified to cell phone records in the case.
Greenberg objected to the introduction of the documents, stating that telephone calls between Houser’s cell phone and the woman’s cell phone were made after the incident allegedly occurred.
Shaw said the records were relevant because one call was made on the same date as the original preliminary hearing.
“That suggest he is … intimidating her,” he said.
Hawkins ruled that the matter should be saved for a discussion involving Houser’s bail before deciding that all charges should be held to court.
“I’m going to let a jury decide or you guys can work it out at a later date,” Hawkins said.
Houser remains free on a signature bond despite an argument from Shaw that he violated one of the conditions of his bail, which was to have no contact with the alleged victim in the case.
During the discussion of bail, the alleged victim’s mother whispered to Greenberg that Houser was calling her when he made the call that was discussed in court.
Greenburg then told the judge, “We don’t have any idea whether that’s Mr. Houser calling [the victim’s] mother.”
Hawkins then stated that the bail conditions were for Houser to have no contact with neither the victim nor members of her family.
Shaw then asked that Houser’s bail be changed.
“I’d ask the court to impose an appropriate monetary condition of bail,” he said, adding that he believed a bail condition should be that Houser is not to enter any establishment that sells, provides or permits alcoholic beverages.
“I think those issues are of concern in this case,” Shaw said.
Hawkins allowed bail conditions to remain as they were originally in the case, which is to commit no further criminal acts, have no contact with neither the victim nor her family, not to possess or consume alcohol and not to enter the home or place of employment of the victim.
The next court date in the case will be set at a later time.