MOUNTAIN HOME — An Arkansas judge says a man charged with punching his pregnant fiancee in the abdomen must stay away from her for now but can be present when she delivers their child.
According to The Baxter Bulletin, Circuit Judge Gordon Webb kept in place a no-contact order but said 20-year-old Ryan Anderson can be present for the baby's birth. The woman had asked Webb to lift the protection order, but prosecutors who filed a second-degree battery charge objected, saying the crime was particularly violent.
Police arrested Anderson on June 29. The woman told an investigator that Anderson began yelling at her when she arrived home from work, but Anderson said the woman had yelled at him for not having a job and threw food at him.
The prosecutor's office and Anderson's lawyer did not immediately reply to phone calls Monday.
The woman is about seven months pregnant. Online court records show that the woman requested a protection order the day after Anderson's arrest, writing "he got into a physical disagreement with me (not the first time)." She went back to court less than a week later and asked that it be dropped.
In notes filed after a court hearing last Thursday, Webb largely agreed with prosecutors that Anderson should stay away from the woman.
"The court ordered that the No Contact Order ... for the protection of the victim is necessary," Webb wrote. "The court will allow the defendant to be present for the birth of his child at the hospital only. The defendant is ordered to not have any dispute with the victim."