A Charleston man received a one year jail sentence Monday for driving while intoxicated and hitting his girlfriend with his pickup truck outside a Cape Girardeau bar last April.
Cape Girardeau County Circuit Judge Benjamin F. Lewis sentenced Steven R. Pemberton, 24, to the year's incarceration after a jury on Nov. 13 acquitted him of a second-degree assault charge and found him guilty on the DWI charge, according to a news release from Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle.
Lewis told Pemberton during Monday's sentencing hearing that the maximum penalty would be imposed because of Pemberton's level of intoxication at the time and because of the severity of the offense.
The DWI conviction was a class A misdemeanor because Pemberton was a prior offender, convicted in 2005 for DWI in Scott County.
On April 18, Cape Girardeau police responded to a call at the parking lot across the street from the Pour House and found Pemberton's 21-year-old girlfriend lying on the ground, crying, bleeding and in obvious pain, Swingle said.
She received treatment at Saint Francis Medical Center for multiple broken ribs, internal bruising and minor scrapes and contusions.
At the scene, Pemberton admitted to police he had been driving the black GMC pickup that witnesses saw strike his girlfriend.
He also admitted to being intoxicated, and a breathalyzer test showed his blood alcohol level had been more than twice the legal limit to get behind the wheel, Swingle said.
The victim, who was still dating Pemberton at the time of trial, testified in November that she didn't remember what happened, Swingle said.
A responding officer testified that Pemberton said he and his girlfriend had gotten into a fight at the bar, and he'd been attempting to leave when she tried to get into the passenger side of his truck.
He put the truck in reverse and accidentally struck her, stopping when he felt the impact and people began yelling, Swingle said.
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