Ian Tice of rural Mountain Home made a first appearance during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday on charges in two cases filed against him and pled not guilty.
Tice is charged with aggravated assault, residential burglary and possession of drug paraphernalia. The more serious charges against the 35-year-old Tice stemmed from an incident this week in which Baxter County Sheriff's Deputies were called to an address on Buzzard Roost Cutoff after a male caller reported a male living in another room at the same address had assaulted his girlfriend.
According to court records, all of the people involved in the incident are residents at the address on Buzzard Roost Cutoff. The person who called for assistance said he was on his way to see his girlfriend when he heard her screaming in her room.
The man told investigators he ran upstairs into the victim's room and saw Tice attacking her. The boyfriend said Tice was armed with a pistol, and he knocked the weapon out of Tice's hand.
After the confrontation with the boyfriend, Tice was said to have run back to his room.
The female victim reported that Tice came to her room, jumped on top of her, tore her shirt off and appeared to be in the process of sexually assaulting her. She said she had not locked the door to her room since she was expecting her boyfriend.
When deputies went to Tice's room, they saw he had a cut on his neck, and his eye was red and swollen. Tice told officers he had been in his room the entire time and did not know what had happened in the woman's room.
He said he had gotten the scratch and swollen eye "horse playing" with the victim's boyfriend.
Tice gave officers permission to search his room. They found an empty black holster on a chair. When questioned, Tice said he did not know where the gun was. Investigators found the weapon under the victim's bed. There was also paraphernalia generally associated with the ingestion of methamphetamine or marijuana in Tice's room.
Tice told investigators he had found the drug paraphernalia in another room and had kept it as "evidence" to hold against some unnamed person.
Tice's first arrest was made late on July 30th when he was found sitting on the passenger's side of a Ford pickup truck parked in the roadway on Bomber Boulevard near Bucher Drive with its headlights off.
After it was discovered Tice had an active warrant, he was arrested. He had a flashlight, a walkie-talkie and a black glove on his person. A glass pipe that can be used in the ingestion of drugs was also found.
Tice is being held in the Baxter County jail with bond set at $75,000. He is scheduled to reappear on September 1st. There was a discussion of lowering his bond, but Judge Putman said he wanted it to stay as currently set until Tice appears before Judge Webb who could make the decision on bond.
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