SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Aug. 9, 2020 (Gephardt Daily) — A man was arrested early Saturday after he allegedly kept a woman captive, assaulted her, and then chased after her when she managed to escape.
Israel Galeana, 47, has been charged with:
- Kidnapping, a second-degree felony
- Aggravated assault by prisoner, a second-degree felony
- Intentional communication/false info to a public officer, a class B misdemeanor
- Use or possession of drug paraphernalia, a class B misdemeanor
According to a probable cause statement filed in 3rd District Court by an officer with the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office, an officer saw a woman running and screaming as a man, later identified as Galeana, chased after her.
Officers who intervened said the woman was “hysterical and expressed pain and immense fear,” and had injuries to her face and neck.
She stated that she had been held captive in a detached garage in which she and the suspect lived, in the nearby area of 7400 South and Rio Grande Street in Midvale.
Galeana and the woman had been in a relationship, which had ended two weeks earlier.
“The AP (arrested person) stated the woman owed him money and made the spontaneous utterance, ‘I was going to let her go as soon as I got my money back,'” the probable cause statement says.
“The AP provided a false name and had to be remotely fingerprinted in order to discover his actual identification,” the document states.
The woman was transported to the hospital for treatment of her injuries, which were consistent with her statement that she had been struck repeatedly with a pole and with fists.
She also told investigators that a noose had been hung in the garage and that Galeana had threatened to hang her from it.
Inside the detached garage, officers saw the noose, as well as drug paraphernalia littered about, and a warrant was issued to gather forensic evidence from the garage.
Galeana was then booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on the above-mentioned charges.
