***MEDIA ADVISORY***

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 29, 2015

JURY FINDS ELKHART MAN GUILTY OF DOMESTIC BATTERY AFTER BEATING GIRLFRIEND IN PUBLIC

Media Contact: Curtis T. Hill, Jr. (574) 296-1888

An Elkhart County jury returned a guilty verdict last Thursday afternoon for the second guilty verdict in Superior Court One in the same week. The jury found Leon Sieg, of Middlebury, guilty of Domestic Battery and Strangulation.

Elkhart Police were originally called on February 26, 2014, after a passerby reported a man assailing a woman on Division Street in Elkhart in broad daylight. A second, anonymous 911 call was made from the apartments at 303 Waterfall Drive a short time later, with the caller reporting that one of the residents was “beating the s***” out of a woman in the hallway. Elkhart Police arrived and investigated, and they arrested Sieg on the street a short time later while Sieg was walking away from the building.

During the trial, the jury heard from the responding Eklhart Police Officers, who testified to searching the building for the victim and finding her cowering in a 9th floor apartment. The first responding Officer, Elkhart Police Corporal Jason Runyan, recounted how the crying and upset victim reported being struck and strangled on Division Street by Sieg before he dragged her to the apartment building. Officer Runyan testified that the victim further reported that Sieg assaulted her in the building elevator and then strangled her again in their apartment bedroom. Both Officers testified that the victim had visible minor injuries to her neck, mouth, and face.

The victim ultimately testified on Sieg’s behalf, attempting to persuade the jury that she was simply drunk and that Sieg was just helping her home and that nothing more happened. During cross examination by Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Patrick Dowd, however, the victim admitted that her memory of the event was poor and that Sieg, in fact, had told her much of what to say.

Sieg himself testified in his own defense that he had saved the victim from stumbling into traffic and then peaceably walked her home. The jury was less persuaded by his testimony than by the phone call he made from the jail, which was played for the jury by Mr. Dowd and Corrections Investigator Ron Harvey, in which Sieg admitted to putting his hands on the victim and boasted that he could do the jail time for domestic battery “on his head.”

Sieg is scheduled to be sentenced in Superior Court One on November 9. If convicted, he faces a maximum of four years in the Indiana Department of Corrections.

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“Under Indiana law, all persons arrested for a criminal offense are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.”