Arkansas man sent to prison in Nevada assault case

Mar. 1—NEVADA, Mo. — A judge sent a 33-year-old Arkansas man to prison this week when he pleaded guilty to assaulting his girlfriend and another man at a motel in Nevada.

Christopher P. Vosecek, of Yellville, Arkansas, pleaded guilty Monday in Vernon County Circuit Court to counts of first-degree domestic assault and third-degree assault in a plea deal calling for concurrent sentences of seven and four years on the convictions.

Judge James Nichols accepted the plea deal and assessed Vosecek the agreed-upon concurrent sentences with the terms to be served in the Missouri prison system's long-term drug treatment program.

The convictions stem from an incident on Aug. 1 at the Super 8 Motel in Nevada. Officers called to the motel made contact with Vosecek's girlfriend in the motel office where she had sought refuge with swelling around her eyes and bruised and swollen cheeks.

She told police that Vosecek had assaulted her in front of her children in a room at the motel because he believed someone had been giving her methamphetamine. She said he had head-butted her in the face multiple times and threatened to kill her.

Officers located the defendant in the room with the children with swelling and a bruise above one eyebrow and bloody hands with scrape marks. While he initially declined to say what had happened, he eventually admitted that he had been fighting with his girlfriend and that he had hit a man in another room down the hall, according to a probable-cause affidavit filed in the case.

Contact was made with the other man down the hall, and he told police that Vosecek had knocked on his door and punched him in the mouth, according to the affidavit.

Jeff Lehr is a reporter for The Joplin Globe.