Man sentenced for assaulting, choking woman in Moses Lake

MOSES LAKE — A Moses Lake man who used a phone charging cord to choke a woman last month will be spending four months in jail.

Joel Havens, 58, of Moses Lake, entered an In Re Barr plea in Grant County Superior Court to third-degree assault-domestic violence and was sentenced to four months in jail. The In Re Barr plea indicates Havens is not pleading guilty to the crime he is pleading to and there is no factual basis for the charge, but he believes there is a substantial risk of being convicted of the crimes he was initially charged with if the case were to proceed to trial. Havens has previous convictions of vehicular homicide in 2002 and unlawful possession of a firearm in 2013.

The incident in question occurred in the early morning hours of April 10 when Moses Lake police received a report of a woman yelling in an apartment in the 900 block of South Division Street. A officer arrived at the apartment and contacted the victim who claimed Havens hit her with a stick, choked her and pulled her into a bedroom, according to court documents.

Havens was at the apartment as well and claimed the victim was the one who had struck him. The victim explained Havens came home drunk, fell asleep and later woke up and started swinging a stick above her head. When the woman got up from where she was sitting Havens hit her on her shin with the stick.

Havens told the woman to leave the apartment, but when she attempted to go he grabbed her and pulled her back into the apartment. After the victim told Havens to go into the bedroom he proceeded to grab the woman by the throat and told her he was going to kill her.

“(The victim) said Havens grabbed the knife I found lying on the living room floor and started waving it around her saying he was going to kill her,” wrote an MLPD officer.

Havens then took the victim’s phone when she attempted to call 911 and wrapped a phone charging cord around her neck to choke her.

“Havens then grabbed a pillow and put it over (the victim’s) face in an attempt to smother her saying he was going to kill her.”

The victim did not require medical attention, but court records indicate she had a welt on her left leg, redness around her neck and redness to her face and nose.