By Linh Nguyen
A man who faces one felony charge of inflicting corporal injury claimed in a preliminary hearing that the alleged incident occurred to protect his children from their drug-user mother.
The defendant, Anthony Tobin, is accused of a felony count of inflicting corporal injury to the complaining witness, his ex-girlfriend and the mother of his three children. Allegedly, the dispute between Tobin and the complaining witness escalated to physical violence, where he grabbed her by the arm and threw her around, resulting in some visible bruising and a lasting headache.
The only witness who testified in the preliminary hearing was Yolo County Sheriff’s Deputy Kyle Leonard.
Leonard recounted the events that allegedly occurred on Sept. 12, 2019, prompting the complaining witness to contact law enforcement three days later on Sept. 15, 2019, when he responded.
According to Leonard, on September 12, Tobin showed up at the complaining witness’ residence, threatening to take their children and leave. At the time, there was another male in the residence who hid when Tobin arrived.
The dispute between Tobin and the alleged victim escalated to physical violence. Tobin allegedly grabbed hold of the complaining witness’ upper arm and threw her around, from which she fell on the ground, sustaining bruises. The children were sleeping during this dispute.
When Leonard asked the complaining witness about how initially painful her injuries were, she described it as a nine on a ten-point scale, where ten is the most painful. By the time Leonard 
responded three days later, she said her pain had subsided to a three.
Leonard later contacted Tobin, who alleged that the complaining witness was on drugs and he wanted to get his children, which was why he showed up to his ex-girlfriend’s residence.
Tobin said to Leonard, “She was on drugs so I took the kids.”
Furthermore, Tobin requested that the children (the oldest of the three was ten years old) not be given back to their mother unless she took a drug test. When Leonard responded to the incident on September 15, the children were under Tobin’s care.
The defense argued that this was a one-time occurrence and that it was situational due to the children’s well-being.
The court found that there was insufficient evidence to hold the defendant to answer to the felony charge of inflicting corporal injury. However, the felony abuse charge will be reduced to a misdemeanor, and the court will hold the defendant to answer to that.
A pre-trial conference will be held on March 20, 2020, in Department 14 at 8:30 am.
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