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Last updated on Thursday, February 11, 2016
(BEDFORD) - A man was sentenced to six years at the Indiana Department of Correction after he plead guilty to battery resulting in serious bodily injury, a Level 5 felony.
Lawrence County Superior Court I Judge Michael Robbins sentenced 22-year-old Zachary Harden on Tuesday afternoon.
According to the plea agreement, Harden will serve three years of his sentence on supervised probation and receive credit for 120.5 days served.
In exchange for the guilty plea, the charges of rape, two counts of criminal mischief and public intoxication were dismissed as the result of a negotiated plea agreement.
Harden was arrested in July after Bedford Police were called to a home in the 800 block of J Street after a woman reported that Harden had raped and beat her.
According to Bedford Police Chief Dennis Parsley, the incident began when Harden came back from a friend's residence and made sexual advances towards the woman. After pushing the man away, the woman then went outside with a female friend to smoke a cigarette. They entered the house believing Harden had gone home. They heard the sound of glass breaking and found that Harden had broken a window, came into the house and was taking his clothes off.
The victim told Harden to leave. He then grabbed the woman, threw her to the ground, struck her with a closed fist and bit her. She blacked out during the assault and awoke to three men over her and Harden running away from the scene.
The woman suffered bruises and swelling to the left side of her head, bite marks on her neck and left arm, and abrasions on the back of her right thigh. The woman was taken by a Seals ambulance IU Health Hospital for treatment.
Police later found Harden at I Street and Summit Lane. He was intoxicated, and he had visible injuries to his face and head.
Harden was taken to IU Health Bedford Hospital by a Seals ambulance, and was treated for his injuries before being booked into the Lawrence County jail.
This was not his first battery arrest. He was arrested in January 2015 after a woman reported he came to her home and struck her in the face. According to court records, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of battery resulting in bodily injury and was sentenced to 365 days in jail, with credit for 58 days and 249 days on unsupervised probation.
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