MS Coast man accused of 2017 stabbing now faces sex crime charges, authorities say
A Mississippi Coast man who police said stabbed his wife in 2017 was arrested this week and charged with sex crimes, authorities said.
Ellis Lamont Cenales, 43, of Biloxi faces four charges: production of child pornography, possession of child pornography, touching a child for lustful purposes and sexual battery, Biloxi Police said in a news release.
Authorities first learned of the case on Jan. 12 after Biloxi Police received a complaint that accused Cenales of assaulting a child under 16, police said.
Investigators found evidence and obtained warrants for his arrest, the release said. It is unclear what evidence led to Cenales’ arrest.
Cenales was also arrested in 2017 in Harrison County, the jail confirmed Thursday.
In June 2017, sheriff’s deputies responded to a home in Gulfport and found Cenales’ wife with a stab wound in her arm, prosecutors said in 2017. Cenales later told a relative in a jailhouse phone call that he stabbed his wife but said he would “beat the charge,” a prosecutor told the Sun Herald in 2017.
Cenales was convicted of aggravated assault and arson in a 2007 case and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2009, the prosecutor said. Cenales was also convicted in 2015 after he brought contraband into the Lauderdale County jail, the Sun Herald previously reported.
Justice Court Judge Albert Fountain set Cenales’ bond this week at $250,000 per charge, according to the release. He is being held at the Harrison County jail.
