A Jefferson man was arrested Friday on a variety of charges after he allegedly assaulted his girlfriend with brass knuckles.
Justin Michael Cosnotti, 35, of 209 W. Russell St., Jefferson, was charged with willful injury causing bodily injury, third or subsequent offense domestic abuse assault, first-degree harassment, child endangerment, false imprisonment, first-offense possession of a controlled substance-heroin and first-offense possession of a controlled substance-methamphetamine.
The incident began about 6:30 a.m. Friday, when officers of the Jefferson Police Department responded to a report of a domestic disturbance in the 500 block of W. State Street in Jefferson.
A caller said two people were “fighting” in a front yard before they left the area. The caller said the fighters left behind them “multiple items.”
According to court records, the responding officers found “two bicycles, a cell phone, two packages of shoe laces, a gray backpack, a Zippo lighter, a small bottle of Crown Royal liquor, a pill bottle, one shoe, keys to a BMW, a portable battery charger and a gray backpack.”
Investigation of the items led the officers to Cosnotti, who said the victim, a female who is his girlfriend and the mother of his child, “had fallen off her bike” and when he tried to assist her, “she reacted in a belligerent way,” according to court records.
The officers found the female victim suffered from “severe lacerations and bruising to the face and body.”
Cosnotti told the officers that “he never hit her and her injuries were from falling off of the bike,” according to court records.
After speaking with an officer, the victim “admitted to” Cosnotti’s “hitting her repeatedly in the face” with “brass knuckles.” The victim said Cosnotti also “informed her that he was going to kill her during the altercation.”
In the course of his arrest for assault at his E. Russell Street residence, Cosnotti told the officers that “his girlfriend had been ‘shooting up’ in the house near their child” and that he himself “was a heroin addict,” according to court records.
As a result, a search warrant was sought by the Jefferson Police Department and ordered by a Greene County Magistrate. A search of the residence was conducted about noon Friday.
According to court records, the search disclosed “multiple smoking devices containing white residue, bags containing white residue, marijuana and small glass and plastic vials containing a dark colored substance,” as well as “several syringes” containing “residue” and five “needles and a prescription pill bottle” with “a variety of different pills.”
The white residue tested positive for methamphetamine,” and the substance in the “dark-colored vial” tested positive for heroin, according to court records.
An 8-month-old child also resides in the residence.
Cosnotti is held in the Greene County Jail on a $20,000 cash or surety bond. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing July 8 in Greene County District Court.
Cosnotti was convicted of domestic abuse assault in 2010 and again in 2014 in California.
*A criminal charge is merely an accusation, and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
