CLEARFIELD – The trial got under way Wednesday for the Pennsylvania State Police trooper who served on the governor’s detail and who has been accused of assaulting and threatening his wife at gunpoint in April of this year.
Terry D. Jordan, 47, of Clearfield is standing trial on charges of aggravated assault, F1; two counts of simple assault, M2; recklessly endangering another person, M2; and terroristic threats, M1. He’s currently incarcerated in lieu of $500,000 straight bail.
District Attorney William A. Shaw Jr. is prosecuting the case on behalf of the commonwealth. Jordan is being represented by defense attorneys Bryan S. Walk and C.J. Zwick. President Judge Fredric Ammerman is presiding over the trial, which is scheduled through Friday.
The victim, Jordan’s wife, took the stand first, telling jurors that when she returned home from work April 21 she had dinner and drinks with her husband at their Golden Rod residence. Later on that evening, they went to a friend’s apartment in Clearfield Borough for a dinner party.
They arrived around 7:30 p.m. – 8 p.m. and there were three other guests, plus the couple’s friend, who were finishing dinner, socializing and having drinks. When the party began to wind down the couple’s friend escorted the other guests out of his apartment. She and Jordan were alone inside.
Jordan took off her shirt and his own and then pulled his pants down; when their friend came back, Jordan invited him to engage in sexual activities. Because she was upset and uncomfortable, their friend stopped it and advised it was best for them to go, she testified.
The victim said she wanted “no part of it,” this made Jordan upset and she saw the anger in his eyes. Before she left, she told her friend that she feared for her life. She said Jordan, who wasn’t in any shape to drive, took them home, and it was “intense” with her being upset and him being angry.
After the couple pulled in the driveway at their home, she said Jordan “ripped” her pants down and she fled into their residence. Once inside, she said he punched her and knocked her into the fetal position. He then kicked her repeatedly.
“It felt like a Mack truck,” she testified. When she gave up fighting back, she said Jordan quit and she made it into the bedroom. There, he choked her multiple times on the bed; when she went to leave, he pressed her against the bedroom wall with a handgun against her head.
According to her, he threatened to kill her and then himself and commented that no one would miss her. She said the more she begged and pleaded with him, the harder he pressed the handgun against her head. She said she just waited for him to pull the trigger.
“I’ve never been so scared in my life,” the victim testified. Jordan, she said, finally let go of her and went out of the room. After she locked herself in a closet and called 911 to report the assault and local police arrived, along with state troopers from the Clearfield barracks.
She said her face was banged up, she had bruises about her body and she had pain in her right side, where he’d been kicking her. She declined to be taken to the hospital by ambulance and asked to be taken by a family member in a private vehicle.
Under cross-examination, Walk asked the victim why she’d left out details about the magnitude of the assault when she gave oral and written statements to police.
Because some weren’t in the police report, he accused her of adding details at trial, such as describing him as a “Mack truck” hitting her, being choked and marks on her head matching the handgun’s barrel to “help her story.”
She explained that everything happened so fast that night, and when she was interviewed by police the night of the incident and again days later, she was very “upset and shaken” by it and couldn’t think clearly.
When asked under re-direct by Shaw, the victim said her testimony was an accurate account of the assault. When asked, she testified that she’d told police that Jordan punched, kicked and choked her, as well as threatened her at gunpoint.
The couple’s friend who hosted the dinner party April 21 said Jordan and his wife arrived around 7:30 p.m. – 7:45 p.m. When it started to wind down around 10 p.m., he escorted guests from his apartment.
When he returned to his apartment, Jordan and his wife were partially nude, and Jordan invited him to engage in sexual activities with them. He could tell the victim was uncomfortable and upset by this, which made him stop it and suggest that the couple leave instead.
He said that as the couple left, the victim hugged him as if she didn’t want to let him go. She then whispered in his ear that she was afraid of Jordan. So far as his knowledge, Jordan drove the couple home, despite having consumed more alcohol than he should have at the party.
A woman testified that at approximately 11:30 p.m. April 21, Jordan showed up at her residence. He told her that he’d beaten the [expletive] out of the victim and put a gun to her head. He also commented that he’d probably go to jail and lose his job over it.
She asked if the victim had called police, and Jordan indicated she had. The woman told Jordan she wanted him to go, as she didn’t want involved. However, he asked her to clean the blood from his lip, which he stated was from him punching the victim and she got him a washcloth. Jordan eventually left, she said, and went back to his vehicle, which was parked down the street.
Officer Levi Olson of the Lawrence Township police said that he and Sergeant James Glass were dispatched to a reported domestic assault involving a weapon in Golden Rod. Township officers were backed up by Clearfield Borough officers and state troopers.
Glass initiated an investigation and collected information from the victim. While going to his patrol car, Olson observed another vehicle, a Honda Civic, returning to the residence, and it was driven by Jordan.
Jordan was taken into custody without incident, he said. When Olson looked into Jordan’s vehicle he observed a handgun in a holster on the seat. He subsequently seized the weapon and secured it inside of his patrol vehicle.
Dr. Ernest P. Jones indicated that the victim came into the emergency room of Clearfield Penn Highlands Hospital early April 22. Among her injuries, he said was a right rib fracture, which is a very incapacitating injury, and she was given medication for pain management.
Jordan’s trial resumes at 9 a.m. today in Clearfield County Court.