An Ocala man is behind bars in the Marion County Jail after becoming enraged and threatening his girlfriend’s life because she was texting someone else.
The girlfriend told Marion County deputies that she and their two-year-old son were riding in a vehicle with 32-year-old Vincent Bernard Coleman when he started questioning her about texting and demanded to see her phone. She said she refused and he struck her in the head and pulled his vehicle into a vacant home near the 2600 block of NE 16th Avenue, a sheriff’s office report states.
The woman said Coleman told her to give him her phone or “he would kill her.” The woman said she grabbed their son and began to yell for help and for someone to call law enforcement. She said Coleman struck her in the face two more times before she was able to take refuge in a nearby residence, the report says.
The woman said she then received a message from Coleman advising her that he was “keeping all of her stuff,” which included her purse, three bank cards and an iPhone 8 valued at $1,000, the report says.
The couple’s son told deputies that he saw his father strike his mother but was unable to say where he hit her. Deputies also noted that the woman had a small laceration on her lip and a swollen lump on the left side of her head, the report says.
Coleman, who has been arrested 13 times in Marion County since 2005, was taken into custody and transported to the Marion County Jail. He was charged with domestic battery and grand theft and was being held on $4,000 bond. He is due in court Sept. 10 at 9 a.m. to answer to the charges.