State Lawmaker Accused of Strangling Woman With Cable

Kentucky's Robert Goforth indicted on strangulation, assault charges
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 21, 2020 2:50 PM CDT
State GOP Rep. Indicted on Domestic Assault Charges
This photo provided by Laurel County Corrections shows Kentucky State Rep. Robert Goforth. Goforth.   (Laurel County Corrections via AP)

Democratic lawmakers in Kentucky are urging their Republican colleagues to force out a state representative indicted on charges of strangulation and assault. GOP Rep. Robert Goforth, 44, was indicted by a grand jury Friday on one count of first-degree strangulation and one count of assault in the fourth degree, the Corbin Times-Tribune reports. Goforth was arrested and released on bail in April after a woman told police he had hit her, strangled her with an ethernet cable until she was on the brink of losing consciousness, and threatened to "hog-tie" her. Police said the woman—who had bruises on her forehead and legs and marks on her neck—told them Goforth had assaulted her while three young children were in the house.

The woman, who told police Goforth refused to release her until she agreed to unlock her phone, also applied for an emergency protection order, records state. Goforth—who got almost 40% of the vote in a 2019 primary challenge to then-Gov. Matt Bevin—pleaded not guilty to charges from the alleged April incident at an arraignment in June, the Washington Post reports. The case then went to the grand jury for possible indictment. In a statement after that indictment, Kentucky Democratic Party spokeswoman Marisa McNee had a message for GOP leadership, saying Goforth "should have resigned back in April and his party should have taken action against him when he refused to do so." The Post notes that in 2019, Goforth helped pass a law to make it easier to prosecute strangulation as a felony. (More Kentucky stories.)

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