Photo: Joel Preston Fuller
A man charged with choking a housemate with an electrical cord appeared in Baxter County Circuit Court Monday.
Thirty-three-year-old Joel Preston Fuller was charged with violating the terms and conditions of his probation handed down in the choking case.
After pleading guilty to those violations, his probation was revoked and he was sentenced to three years in prison.
Charges in the underlying case included battery, impairing the operation of a vital public facility, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
Fuller was arrested after Baxter County sheriff’s deputies were called to a home along Buzzard Roost Road about 10:30 p.m. on June 6, 2020. Fuller and another male were reported to be fighting.
A female at the residence told the deputies the fight was going on in the back bedroom. As deputies approached, Fuller is alleged to have run out of that room, ducked into another bedroom and shut the door.
The deputies reported seeing the victim on the floor of the room from which Fuller had fled. The victim was reported to have been gasping for air. According to the probable cause affidavit, the victim also had a number of marks on his body and was bleeding from wounds to his facial area.
One of the deputies found Fuller lying on a bed and told him to get up. He is reported to have screamed at the deputy to get the victim out of his house. Fuller was said to have been heavily intoxicated.
The female reported that day Fuller had been drinking spiced rum that has a very high alcohol content. She said Fuller was the aggressor, and that the fight was sparked because he thought the victim and the woman were having a physical relationship.
She said the victim had gone to his bedroom to get away from Fuller, but that Fuller had punched a hole in the door. When he entered the room, the woman said, he started hitting the victim and then wrapped the electrical cord from a fan around the victim’s neck.
Fuller resisted being taken into custody and had to be dragged out of the house. He was taken to the Baxter County Detention Center, where he continued to act out, causing jail staff to employ a stun gun to bring him under control.
The victim was taken by ambulance to Baxter Regional Medical Center. He was reported to have suffered a concussion and a broken rib.
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