A Pulaski County circuit judge reduced bail to $125,000 for a North Little Rock man accused of partially blinding his ex-wife, after his lawyer complained Tuesday that the 58-year-old man's health is at risk because of his ongoing incarceration while awaiting trial.
Charged with first-degree domestic battery, Lindy Craig Beaver has been jailed under $500,000 bail for almost 10 months since his July 8 arrest at his father's home at 115 Farmere Circle, defense attorney David Sudduth told Judge Leon Johnson.
Beaver remained in jail Wednesday. Facing up to 20 years in prison, he is scheduled to stand trial in July.
Sudduth, a public defender, asked the judge to consider reducing bail even further, but Johnson said $125,000 was as low as he could go.
Sudduth said Beaver has had a difficult time getting his medication regularly in jail.
Beaver's epilepsy regularly induces major seizures, and he lives on a monthly $1,505 disability payment, court filings show.
Beaver, who didn't testify, was arrested hours after Sherwood police found 65-year-old Kathy Wells in the hospital with injuries that included a fractured right-eye socket. Beaver had taken her to the emergency room, detective Kayla Fisher told the judge.
Wells told her that Beaver had spent the night at her Elmwood Avenue home and that he'd accosted her in the morning during an argument, punching her in the head and knocking her into a vanity, the detective testified.
Fisher said Beaver told police when he was being taken into custody that nothing had happened between the couple.
When police were taking him back to Sherwood, he asked officers to document his injuries, the detective said. Beaver said Wells had fallen on the vanity and had scratched his arm while he was trying to pick her up, Fisher told the judge.
"He said if she was going to press charges on him, he was going to press charges on her," Fisher told the judge.
Wells lost her eye and has partial facial paralysis and a blood clot in one of her legs from the incident, deputy prosecutor Katie Hinojosa.
Wells is afraid that Beaver will get out of jail and kill her, the prosecutor said, telling the judge that she shares the woman's fear.
"I'm personally scared that if he gets out, he will kill her," Hinojosa said. "And I know she's terrified."
Court records show that Beaver has battered the woman previously, resulting in a misdemeanor domestic battery conviction in 2009 and a felony conviction -- an enhanced charge because of his two previous convictions -- in 2013.
The felony conviction was for Beaver attacking Wells in July 2012 after she'd left him to file for divorce. They had been married for just more than seven years.
He pleaded guilty in exchange for a sentence of five years on probation, conditioned in part on the requirement that he stay away from Wells. His July arrest came about two months after he'd finished his sentence.
Beaver's attorney scoffed at the idea that Beaver would kill Wells. He told the judge that Beaver would be living with his 90-year-old father, Lindy Warren Beaver, if he were released, and that the senior Beaver would be able to keep the defendant out of trouble and appear at all of his court appearances.
Metro on 04/26/2018