Paralyzed North Little Rock woman's testimony OK'd for husband's battery trial

Spouse’s court date Monday

A North Little Rock woman who was shot and paralyzed will be allowed to testify about how her estranged husband -- the man accused of shooting her -- abused her verbally and physically during the year before the shooting, a Pulaski County circuit judge ruled on Thursday.

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Ernesto Anaya J̶r̶.̶* Sr., 59, is to stand trial Monday on charges of first-degree battery and terroristic threatening that could net him up to 50 years in prison.

On Thursday, his attorney, Bill James, challenged the legality of prosecutors using what he said was inadmissible character testimony.

Evangelina Anaya's accusations about abuse during their 26-year marriage would do more to make Ernesto Anaya look bad than they would prove what happened to the 54-year-old mother of three at the family's Cherry Hill Drive home in May 2014, James told Judge Chris Piazza.

Evangelina Anaya was shot in the neck, prosecutors say. Her 11-year-old son told police that he saw his father shoot his mother, court filings show. The boy said he had been in bed with her when the elder Anaya shot her in the chest.

Her 22-year-old son told police he was awakened by someone screaming and ran into his mother's bedroom where he saw her on the floor with his father standing over her with a pistol.

He said he struggled with his father over the gun, which the man dropped before fleeing the house, according to police reports.

Evangelina Anaya's 26-year-old daughter told police she also was awakened by screaming from her parents' bedroom, where she saw her brother and father struggling. There was a gun on the floor, and she put it into a closet, police said.

Ernesto Anaya was arrested two days later.

Evangelina Anaya's blood was found on the gun, and the gunshot wound left her paralyzed from the neck down, a condition from which she is unlikely to heal, prosecutors said.

In a lawsuit against Ernesto Anaya over the shooting, Evangelina Anaya states that she had been sleeping when he came into her bedroom, told her he hated her and that he was shooting her for filing a counterclaim to his divorce petition.

The counterclaim, seeking custody of their youngest minor son and possession of their $275,000 home, was filed five days before she was shot.

His divorce petition states that the couple had just separated, while her counterclaim says they had split in January 2013, but continued to live together.

Deputy prosecutor Tonia Acker told the judge that allowing jurors to hear about how Ernesto Anaya terrorized and sometimes brutalized his wife over the course of their marriage shows proof that he had a motive to shoot her.

The prosecutor said Evangelina Anaya's abuse accusations would also counter any defense arguments that she had been shot by accident instead of through a deliberate act by Ernesto Anaya.

The judge said he'd limit her testimony to what had happened over the year before she was shot.

Documents presented by the prosecutor appear to show their relationship began to change about that time, Piazza said.

But, if Ernesto Anaya testifies at trial, that could open the door for not just more of his wife's testimony about abuse in their marriage, but testimony from other relatives who've seen or heard about abuse and discord between them, the judge said.

Piazza's ruling will prohibit jurors from hearing accusations that Anaya once burned his wife's face with an iron 20 years ago and held a gun to her head two years before she was shot.

Court records show that Ernesto Anaya filed for divorce a week before his wife was shot. Three days before the shooting, the couple were still living together when Evangelina Anaya filed for an order of protection to keep him away from her and her son.

Her husband was never notified of the petition.

According to the filing, he had last hit her in October 2013. She reported that he had also tried to run her off the road by ramming her car with his while he was on the phone with her saying he was going to kill her, but that she had not reported the incident to police.

The petition also states that he continued to verbally abuse her every day after the car incident, with threats that he was going to kill her, hit her and take her children away.

"I am in fear. I live in fear," the petition states, also describing instances when she had been choked and dragged by her hair.

Property records show that since 2004, the couple have owned Las Delicias, a combination grocery and restaurant, at the corner of Pike Avenue and West 34th Street in North Little Rock.

Metro on 01/29/2016

*CORRECTION: Ernesto Anaya Sr. was scheduled to be tried on first-degree battery and terroristic threatening charges in the shooting of his wife, which left her paralyzed. This article used an incorrect suffix on Anaya’s name.

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