Published: July 11, 2009 12:22 am      

Prison sentence given in family violence case

A Bowie County man has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to his third case of family violence assault in 11 years.

Robert Earl Roach Jr., 30, of Maud, entered the plea during a hearing Friday in the 196th District Court. Roach was also charged with stealing a landscaping truck and leading local police officers on a chase last month. Under a plea bargain arrangement, the evading arrest and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle counts were dismissed, although the punishment Road would have received if convicted of the charges was considered as part of his eventual sentence.

Roach was indicted by the Hunt County grand jury in April on a charge of assault causing bodily injury/family violence with a previous family violence conviction. He was alleged to have assaulted a male family member on June 21, 2008.

Roach was sentenced Friday to 10 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice-Institutional Division, the maximum punishment for the third degree felony charge.

The indictment listed previous convictions for assault/family violence in 2001 and 1998 and a conviction for burglary in 2005, all from Hunt County.