Last April, Raymond Bautista donned a ski mask and black clothing and waited for the mother of his unborn baby to leave her Hatboro apartment to head to work.
Around 4:30 a.m., Bautista, 37, of Allentown, attacked the woman. He hit her from behind, and kicked her in the back and stomach. While she was on the ground, he got on top of her and punched her face. And when she began to scream, he ran.
The woman, a coworker of Bautista’s who was 15 weeks pregnant with his child and had recently told him she planned to keep the baby, suffered nasal fractures and abrasions, according to police.
On Tuesday, Bautista pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and no contest to aggravated assault of an unborn child.
He was sentenced to four to six years in prison.
The woman said in a statement read aloud by prosecutors the assault scars her to this day.
“I lost my peace of leaving home every morning,” she said. “… No woman deserves to be treated this way.”
After the assault, while the woman’s clothing was still soiled with blood, police asked whether she could think of anyone who would want to hurt her. The only person who came to mind, she said, was Bautista, a coworker at a Hatfield-based food processing company.
According to the affidavit of probable cause for Bautista’s arrest, the woman said that after he learned that she was pregnant with his child, he told her to take an emergency contraceptive. He also said he “did not want any involvement with the child’s life,” the document said
Bautista initially denied leaving his Allentown residence that morning and told police he had been sleeping.
Investigators later recovered footage of Bautista’s vehicle being driven from Allentown to Hatboro that morning, as well as clothing resembling the attire worn by the woman’s assailant when he was captured in Ring doorbell camera footage of the assault.
Presented with that evidence, police said, Bautista admitted to the crime. He told investigators he attacked the woman because she had been “talking [expletive]” about him at work.
Montgomery County Court Judge Steven T. O’Neill accepted Bautista’s guilty plea and, in addition to sentencing him to years in prison, ordered him to have no contact with the woman and to attend domestic violence counseling.
O’Neill commended the victim for facing Bautista in court and said that in her statement, he had “heard her courage.”
“I hope you’ve heard the same,” the judge told Bautista.
Amid a historic drop in violent crime, homicides have fallen to lows not seen in decades. But in what researchers say is an alarming trend, homicides related to domestic violence are on the rise.
There were 37 such killings in Philadelphia last year, up from 28 the previous year. And even as homicides have fallen sharply overall, domestic killings remain stubbornly intractable. In all, deaths related to domestic violence accounted for about one in six homicides in the city last year, records show.
To address that, the police department is adding specialized training for officers and others who deal with victims of such crimes and adding staff in its Office of Community Advocacy and Engagement. When the unit expands this spring, staffers will be trained to spot signs of domestic abuse and advocate for victims of intimate partner violence, among other crimes.
That work mirrors efforts in cities such as New York, which launched a new police unit last year dedicated to combating the surge in domestic violence as such crimes rise nationwide.
“The numbers are moving in the wrong direction,” said Marian Braccia, a professor at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law and a former prosecutor in the district attorney’s family violence and sexual assault unit. “It’s terrifying.”
In Philadelphia last year, the slaying of Kada Scott drew attention to the issue after The Inquirer reported that her accused killer, Keon King, had previously been accused of stalking and kidnapping another woman. But two criminal cases against him fell apart when the victim failed to appear in court and prosecutors withdrew the charges.
And last month, calls for awareness surrounding domestic violence were renewed when Yuan Yuan Lu, 28, was killed one day after reporting that her ex-boyfriend had sexually assaulted her in his Pennsport home. Police say 32-year-old Yujun Ren followed Lu to her Levittown home and shot her in the head, killing her.
According to prosecutors, Lu told police the day before she was killed that Ren carried a gun and she feared for her safety.
Philadelphia’s new unit would work to support victims in just such circumstances, officials said. The office launched last spring with 10 victim advocates with backgrounds in social work and behavioral health.
In March, those staffers will begin working with victims of sexual assault and domestic violence, said Ayanna Greene-Davis, executive director of the Office of Community Advocacy and Engagement.
And the unit will add 10 more members — sworn police officers with law enforcement experience — who will complete similar victim-oriented training, she said.
Ayanna Greene-Davis, 47, Executive Director for Office of Community Advocacy and Engagement, of Northwest Philadelphia, Pa., poses for a portrait at the Philadelphia Police Headquarters in Philadelphia, Pa., on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026. .
“We’re not going to take days and days and days” to respond to reports of domestic violence, Greene-Davis said. “In the past, that happened.”
Victims of such crimes will be able to call the office’s advocates to voice concerns about their cases as they are investigated, according to Greene-Davis. And advocates will be trained to connect them with resources such as domestic abuse shelters and provide information on ways to remove themselves from dangerous living situations.
The unit will also oversee a broader effort to train patrol officers throughout the department to better assess the dangers victims of domestic violence face and work to keep them safe.
“Every victim is going to be in a different stage, but we can talk to them,” Greene-Davis said. “We can provide a safety plan.”
All charges were dropped against Leonard Hill, a prominent personal injury attorney accused of aggravated assault and related crimes for shooting and injuring a man during an altercation outside a Center City cigar bar in 2023.
Prosecutors dropped the charges Friday morning shortly before Hill, 56, was set to go to a bench trial before Common Pleas Judge J. Scott O’Keefe.
In addition to aggravated assault, Hill will not face charges of possessing an instrument of a crime, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, and tampering with evidence.
Aggravated assault, a felony and the most serious of those offenses, carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Hill’s attorney, Fortunato N. Perri, declined to comment on the decision.
Last year, in a highly unusual move in an aggravated assault case, the District Attorney’s Office offered to admit Hill to the diversion program instead of going to trial.
Had Hill participated, his case would have been expunged after completing a period of probation and community service, surrendering the legally owned firearm police recovered from his Bala Cynwyd home, and donating $25,000 to an anti-violence group.
District Attorney Larry Krasner said in an interview at the time that request was “specifically my decision.” The district attorney called information about the case, some of it revealed after Hill’s arrest, both unique and highly unusual, though he declined to elaborate.
A spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office declined to comment Friday.
After prosecutors sought diversion last February, Municipal Court Judge William Austin Meehan Jr.denied prosecutors’ request.
The judge said Hill’s case was not appropriate for diversion, which is typically reserved for cases involving relatively minor offenses, and urged prosecutors to resolve the case through different means.
It’s rare for those accused of shootings to be offered diversion, otherwise known as the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition. Several nonfatal shooting cases have ended with diversion since 2011: participants usually include those charged with nonviolent offenses such as DUIs, petty theft, or drug possession.
Attorneys for Hill — whose billboards advertising his legal servicesfeature prominently on Philadelphia’s freeway system — maintained their client acted in self-defense when firing twice at a man outside the Ashton Cigar Bar on the 1500 block of Walnut Street.
The episode began when Hill and a bar manager tried to separate a woman and another man she said was intoxicated and accosting her, according to court documents.
The confrontation spilled outside, where Hill and the man began to argue. Hill drew a firearm and fired once during the argument, the court documents said. Hill fired again as the man ran away, striking the 38-year-old in the calf.
Hill left the scene and changed his clothes before returning, and did not tell officers who responded to the bar that he had fired shots, according to the documents. Investigators recovered video of the shooting and interviewed the bar manager, who identified Hill as the shooter but said he had fired in self-defense.
Perri, Hill’s attorney, later said the man who Hill shot had been wielding a knife — a detail not included in his arrest paperwork — and said his client made a “split-second decision” to defend himself and others in a dangerous situation.
Prosecutors’ decision to offer Hill diversion last year did not come without criticism.
Keisha Hudson, head of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, told the Inquirer in February 2025 that she could not recall a single instance in which one of the organization’s clients was offered diversion after shooting someone.
She said the case’s handling was emblematic of a justice system that treats poor defendants and those with money differently. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
Staff writer Ellie Rushing contributed to this article.
An employee of Radnor Middle School was arrested Thursday morning and charged with sexually assaulting a child in Texas, authorities say.
Michael Robinson, 43, was taken into custody by U.S. marshals and Radnor police a block from the Wayne middle school around 7:30 a.m., according to a spokesperson for the marshals service.
Robinson is a paraprofessional at Radnor Middle School, law enforcement officials said. He was wanted by Texas authorities in connection with the assault, which officials said occurred in 2024 after Robinson met the victim online.
A spokesperson for the Radnor Township School District said that it is cooperating with law enforcement and that it has not received information indicating that Robinson behaved inappropriately with Radnor students.
“Parents of the limited number of children to whom the employee was assigned were contacted by the administration immediately,” the spokesperson said, adding that Robinson has been placed on leave amid the investigation into his behavior.
Law enforcement officials said Robinson traveled to Tyler, Texas, to meet the victim, whom he assaulted over the course of a weekend.
He was indicted by prosecutors in Smith County, Texas, in December and charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child under 15 years old.
Robinson is being held at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Delaware County, awaiting extradition to Texas.
A Philadelphia man was charged with first-degree murder and related crimes after he shot and killed his wife in Rockledge, Montgomery County, on Saturday evening, officials said Monday.
Jose Antonio Luna, 59, was arrested shortly after the shooting, the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office said.
Prosecutors say Luna shot his wife, 48-year-old Alisett Schubert, multiple times, killing her, near the intersection of Huntington Pike and Filmore Street that night.
The incident began when the couple started arguing as they drove home from a partyin a silver Nissan, according to the affidavit of probable cause for in Luna’s arrest.
Schubert was behind the wheel. After she told Luna to get out of the car and walk home, the two began to wrestle over Schubert’s purse, where she kept a .38 caliber revolver that was registered in her name, the affidavit said.
Luna grabbed the weapon and shot his wife once, the document said. After Schubert yelled “Oh my God” and tried to flee the vehicle, the affidavit said, Luna shot her four more times.
Luna later told investigators that Schubert had “disrespected him in front of others” at a banquet hall that afternoon, according to the document. He also told investigators he left one round in the gun’s chamber with the intent to later kill himself, the affidavit said.
A SEPTA bus driver reported the shooting to police, according to the document.
Around 10 p.m., authorities said, the driver came across the Nissan stalled in the road, and heard two to three gunshots before watching Luna exit the vehicle’s passenger side and pull open the driver’s side door.
Schubert’s body “slouched” out of the car, the affidavit said.
The driver watched as Luna fled the scene. Later, when Philadelphia police located him about a mile away near 1200 Rhawn Street, Luna put Schubert’s gun to his head and pulled the trigger, according to the affidavit.
But the gun was out of ammunition and did not fire. Police arrested Luna without incident.
Investigators later learned Luna had called Schubert’s mother after the shooting to tell her that her daughter had died, but he did not say how the death occurred, and he told the woman he wanted to kill himself.
Meanwhile, Schubert was taken to Abington Hospital suffering from multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead.
Schubert had previously told a close friend that Luna was physically and mentally abusing her, the affidavit said. The friend told investigators that she had once seen Luna punch Schubert in the face.
Prosecutors said Luna had an extensive criminal history and had been arrested “numerous” times for illegal entry into the United States and for reentry after deportation.
In addition to first-degree murder, Luna was charged with third-degree murder and possessing an instrument of a crime.
He is being held without bail at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility and is expected to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on March 5.
The woman, then battling an addiction to heroin, said she sought help at the Opioid Crisis Action Network, a beacon of hope for those struggling with substance abuse disorder in Delaware County.
But instead of providing compassionate care, Larry Arata, the nonprofit’s founder, offered her gift cards in exchange for oral sex in his car in 2024, the woman testified Thursday in a Delaware County courtroom.
The experience traumatized her, she said, and within a month she had dropped out of recovery and overdosed.
“I was still on heroin, and I needed help,” the woman said, her voice breaking as she recalled the encounter. “I didn’t expect to have to do that.”
As she spoke, Arata, 65, sat in the courtroom for a preliminary hearing in a sweeping prostitution and trafficking case that Delaware County prosecutors brought against him late last year.
He has denied any wrongdoing, and his lawyers said Thursday that they would present a robust defense at trial.
In emotional testimony, six women took the stand and accused Arata of criminal behavior. The Inquirer is not naming the women because the newspaper does not identify victims of sex crimes without their permission
One woman said Arata hired her to clean the Opioid Crisis Action Network’s office as she was trying to get sober. Almost immediately, she said, he began complimenting her appearance. Eventually, they began having sex in Arata’s private office at the nonprofit and at a nearby hotel, she said, where he sneaked her in a back door.
Afterward, she said, Arata would give her a $300 paycheck, as well as extra cash and gift cards.
Other women who sought the Action Network’s help said Arata made comments about their appearance and offered them financial incentives after sexual encounters in parks, hotels, and in one case, his father’s home.
Arata founded the Opioid Crisis Action Network after his son died of an overdose in 2017, and he became something of a figurehead for issues surrounding addiction in the suburban county.
But Arata abused his position of influence, prosecutors said in November as they charged him with multiple counts of trafficking, patronizing prostitutes, promoting prostitution, obstruction, and one count of harassment.
They said Arata twisted his nonprofit’s mission, using cash, gift cards, and rent payments to elicit sex from vulnerable women who relied on him for help.
In one case, a woman testified that Arata told after a sexual encounter that “secrets are meant to be kept.” Others said he worried that his wife would find out about the sexual encounters and asked them to delete sexually explicit images they had texted him.
And one woman — who said Arata had cornered her in his office and tried to kiss her — said that when he later learned that she had spoken to county investigators about the incident, called her a liar and told her to recant.
Arata’s attorneys did not call any witnesses. They told the judge their client’s alleged behavior did not meet the legal standards for many of charges against him, including trafficking and obstruction.
After hearing nearly four hours of testimony, Delaware County Court Judge Benjamin Johns said prosecutors had presented sufficient evidence for all charges against Arata to stand.
Brandi McLaughlin, an attorney for Arata, told reporters that her team would try the case in a “courthouse, not the media.”
A Chester County man pleaded guilty to murder and related crimes earlier this month after he punched a 9-month-old infant and did not seek medical care for the child, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Enrique Lopez-Gomez, 32, of West Grove, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and endangering the welfare of a child on Feb. 11, according to prosecutors.
He remains incarcerated in the Chester County Prison and awaits sentencing.
Announcing the charges, Chester County District Attorney Christopher de Barrena-Sarobe called the crime “unthinkable.”
Prosecutors say Lopez-Gomez was the child’s caregiver at the time of the 2024 incident, when he fell on the infant at a residence in Kennett Square. As the baby began to cry in pain, Lopez-Gomez punched the child in the abdomen, prosecutors said.
He did not seek help or tell anyone about the child’s injuries, according to prosecutors, nor did he offer medical care as the child’s condition worsened that evening.
First responders who were later called to the scene removed the baby from the home, and the child was pronounced dead at Nemours/A.I. DuPont Hospital for Children.
Medical examiners determined that the child had died from blunt force trauma, leading to an intestinal rupture and soft tissue bleeding, prosecutors said.
The baby had also suffered large bruises around the abdomen.
Prosecutors have yet to set a date for Lopez-Gomez’s sentencing. He is being held on $10 million bail.
In December, Katrina Williams watched as the man who killed her brother was sentenced to decades in prison and felt, she said, as if a two-year nightmare was coming to an end.
But weeks later, another shooting took the life of her only son.
Williams’ brother, Lashyd Merritt, 21, was one of five people killed in a mass shooting in Kingsessing in July 2023, when Kimbrady Carriker walked through the Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood with an AR-15 rifle and fired at random passersby.
Then, in January, her 19-year-old son, Russell, was killed by a man who, like the Kingsessing shooter, committed a spree of crimes, police say.
“I’ll never understand it,” said Williams,43. “There’s no reason for it.”
A high school photograph of Russell Williams being held by his father and mother, Katrina and Russell Williams Sr. at their home in Southwest Philadelphia on Feb. 6.
For Williams, the trauma of Merritt’s violent death never fully dissipated, she said, and the fatal shooting of her son only compounds her pain.
It’s a cycle of violence that is not unfamiliar in the city.
For others with relatives killed in the Kingsessing attack, the traumatic impact of gun violence did not end on that July day. Nyshyia Thomas lost her 15-year-old son, DaJuan Brown, to the gunfire and, while she was still mourning, her 21-year-old son, Daquan Brown, was arrested last year in connection with another mass shooting in Grays Ferry.
Asked about the evening of Jan. 28, when she and her husband, Russell Williams Sr., learned of their son’s death, Williams said two things came to mind:
“Déjà vu,” she said, and “hell.”
A seemingly random crime
Around 10 p.m. near 64th Street and Lindbergh Boulevard, police said, 19-year-old Zaamir Harris stepped off a SEPTA bus and stole a bike from the vehicle.
He rode up to Russell Williams, who was walking home from night school, where the teen was studying to become a commercial truck driver. Harris then pulled a gun and fired at Williams multiple times, striking him in the throat, police said.
Williams collapsed near 66th Street and Dicks Avenue, just three blocks from home. After the shooting,Harris ditched the bike and stole an e-scooter before fleeing, according to police.
Police tracked Harris to a Wawa at 84th Street and Bartram Avenue, where he was arrested. He was charged with murder and gun crimes. Investigators recovered three fired cartridge casings from the scene, as well as a 9mm handgun, according to police.
A spokesperson for the Philadelphia Police Department declined to say whether investigators have determined a motive for the shooting, citing the ongoing investigation.
Katrina Williams said her son did not know Harris, and a police detective told her the shooting was random.
After he was shot, Russell Williams was rushed to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he died from his injuries. It was the same hospital where Williams’ brother, Merritt, was taken after being shot in Kingsessing, she said.
Katrina Williams, whose son, Russell, 19, was shot and killed not far from family home in Southwest Philadelphia.
Russell Williams had recently graduated from Philadelphia Electrical and Technology Charter School and dreamed of an entrepreneurial career in stock trading.
Like her son, Williams said, Merritt was a hard worker who wanted to better his life. He worked for the IRS, had a girlfriend, and wanted to travel the world, she said.
“We lost two great people,” Williams said. “Two of them.”
That police made an arrest in the slaying of their son has brought little solace, Williams and her husband said as they sat in their Southwest Philadelphia living room on a recentFebruary day. Family photos filled the space, and a portrait of Russell, smiling and wearing a tuxedo, hung on the wall.
As the case against her son’s accused killer proceeds, Williams said, she will be in court every step of the way, just as she was when Carriker pleaded guiltyin the death of her brother.
In December, as Carriker faced sentencing, Williams said, she could not bring herself to address the judge and ask for a long prison sentence, as relatives of other victims did. She was so overcome with anger, she said, that she feared she might physically attack her brother’s killer.
But she was in the room when Common Pleas Court Judge Glenn B. Bronson sentenced him to 37½ to 75 years in prison. In Williams’ view, Carriker should have received a life sentence for each person he killed, she said, even if no punishment could make up for the loss of Merritt.
Now, Williams is preparing to head back to court as she once again seeks justice.
Since her son’s death, Williams said, she has taken comfort in the kindness of friends and family. She was touched, she said, to see a “block full of people” gather to honor his life and release balloons in his memory. But the ache of her loss remains.
“It’s like pain on top of pain — it’s just always gonna be hard,“ Williams said. ”I just gotta deal with it the best way I can.”
When Yuan Yuan Lu’s boyfriend sexually assaulted her in his Pennsport home last week, her cousin said, she broke up with him and went to the police.
The 28-year-old Bucks County woman thought she was doing the right thing by reporting the crime, her cousin Natalie Truong said.
“She told me how safe she felt, how much better she felt opening up and telling the cops her story,” said Truong, who spent time with Lu the evening she reported the assault.
That was the last time Truong saw Lu alive.
On Sunday, less than 12 hours after Lu called police to say that her ex-boyfriend, Yujun Ren, had attacked her, police said, Ren, 32, stalked her. He followed her to her home in Levittown, police said, approached her as she sat in her car outside her house, and shot her in the head, killing her.
Lu’s death shook her loved ones and led to calls on social media for increased awareness of intimate partner violence.
Truong said Lu leaves behind dreams unfulfilled. Lu grew up in a small village in south China, and moved to the United States with her father in 2009 to seek a more prosperous life.
In Philadelphia, she attended Constitution High School, perfected her English, and always kept her friends abreast of her latest entrepreneurial pursuits, Truong said.
Lu went into the food business with friends, cooking homemade Asian cuisine and selling it in carts on local college campuses, and later worked in a bubble tea shop and at a nursing home.
Yuan Yuan Lu loved to eat at Philadelphia’s restaurants, according to her cousin, Natalie Truong.
She loved her pets — a corgi named Dundun and a cat named Milk Cap, after a creamy bubble tea topping. Lu and Truong frequented Philadelphia restaurants, most recently dining together at Kalaya in Fishtown, and took day trips to places like New Jersey’s Swaminarayan Akshardham, the second-largest Hindu temple in the world.
Despite the cousins’ close relationship, Truong said, Lu did not share a lot of details about her personal life, perhaps not wanting to trouble others with her concerns.
Truong said Lu did not talk a lot about her relationship with Ren, whom she had met at her nursing home job and had dated for about a year. Truong’s perception of the relationship changed the night her cousin opened up about Ren’s behavior, she said.
“She was struggling alone for a while,” Truong said, adding that initially, Lu “liked him, so we all trusted her judgment.”
On Sunday, the day after Lu reported the assault, Ren turned himself in to police in Middletown Township, and officers discovered Lu’s bodyin her white Hyundai shortly after noon, authorities said. He was charged with murder, stalking, and a firearms crime.
Ren told police that Lu had said “hurtful things” to him that day and that, in an attempt to scare her, he had brandished the firearm, which he said accidentally discharged. He was licensed to own the weapon, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.
Ren’s aunt later turned in her nephew’s 9mm handgun — a weapon Lu had told police he “carried everywhere,” leading her to fear for her safety, the affidavit said.
Truong said she wished law enforcement had had more time to investigate the sexual assault before Lu was killed. Her death was tragic, her cousin said, a life ended all too soon.
Lu’s father had recently left Philadelphia to join his wife and son in China. Truong has started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to help the family with funeral expenses and to pay for travel to Philadelphia to attend the service.
As the family mourns Lu’s death, Truong said, they are hopeful that law enforcement officials will hold her killer accountable.
“We just want her to get the justice that she deserves, because she’s a really kind person,” Truong said. “She never thought this would happen to her — because you would never think someone you love can hurt you like that.”
Yuan Yuan Lu poses with her corgi, Dundun, and her cat, Milk Cap.
A Western Pennsylvania man stole nearly $250,000 from the Montgomery County-based Pennsylvania Occupational Therapy Association, prosecutors said Monday, and spent the money on a trip to Disney World, country club membership fees, an Outer Banks vacation rental, and other personal expenses.
Michael Fantuzzo, 40, was charged with several counts of theft for the crimes, which prosecutors said took place between 2021 and 2024 while Fantuzzo, of Westmoreland County, served as treasurer for the nonprofit trade organization.
In all, prosecutors said, Fantuzzo spent $246,708 of the association’s funds, effectively reducing its savings account to zero.
Fantuzzo admitted to investigators that he used the association’s funds for personal expenses, though he initially told them he had spent $90,000 of the group’s funds and did so by accident.
A further investigation into Fantuzzo’s spending found that the sum was much larger.
Prosecutors say Fantuzzo spent more than $100,000 from the association’s bank account to pay off debt on a handful of credit cards opened in his name.
And Fantuzzo charged more than $128,000 to the association’s credit card, including $10,513 to install a hot tub at his home; $7,247 for a vacation home rental in Duck, N.C.; $5,460 for his local and county taxes; $4,124 for membership to the Hillcrest Country Club; $2,040 for a limousine service; and $2,019 for the trip to Disney World.
Members of the Pennsylvania Occupational Therapy Association, based in Plymouth Meeting at the time of the theft, realized something was wrong when newly elected board members learned the organization they inherited was experiencing “severe financial distress,” police said. They reported the suspicious payments to authorities in November.
The association advocates for occupational therapists and provides career development and networking opportunities, among other services, according to its website.
Investigators say they linked the spending back to Fantuzzo in a variety of ways.
Some payments, such as the Disney World tickets, included Fantuzzo and his family members’ names on the charges. Meanwhile, the PayPal payments went to an account bearing the name of Fantuzzo’s wife. And investigators tracked Fantuzzo’s name back to invoices and rental agreements for other purchases.
Fantuzzo turned himself in to Montgomery County authorities on Feb. 6. He was released from custody and is expected to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Feb. 17.
