Date Published: February 25, 2006   

Eldridge case before grand jury

Domestic violence hearing results coming Monday

By LESLIE CANTU
Item Staff Writer
lesliec@theitem.com

The state’s case against a county councilman accused of domestic violence went before the county grand jury Thursday, but the results won’t be made public before Monday.

Mark Plowden, a spokesman for the state Attorney General’s Office, said a Sumter police officer presented the case against District 3 Councilman Ronnie Eldridge, who was arrested for criminal domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature Dec. 11.

If Eldridge is indicted, Gov. Mark Sanford will then have the power to suspend him from county council until he is either acquitted or convicted.

Grand jury proceedings are secret; even the prosecutor doesn’t know what the jury sees or hears, Plowden said. Most likely the grand jury’s decision whether to indict Eldridge will be made public Monday, when the next term of General Sessions court begins.

It’s possible, however, that jurors heard some of the same evidence presented at a preliminary hearing, a forum for the prosecution to show there was probable cause to charge a suspect.

The defense attorney might argue for a lesser charge, as Eldridge’s attorney, Michael Jordan, did, but he doesn’t put up a full-blown defense as he would at a trial.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Clarendon County Magistrate Carnell Hampton heard a tape of the 911 call made by the victim, the mother of Eldridge’s child, on the night of the arrest.

An officer also read the victim’s written statement.

In that statement, the woman says she and Eldridge were at his bar, Savannah Break, for a customer-appreciation Christmas party.

They were socializing with another couple when Eldridge asked the other woman to dance to a slow song. In return, the woman’s husband asked the victim to dance. Afterward, she said, Eldridge grabbed her arm and called her a whore. She said he then disappeared from the party, and another friend told her he had left because he was angry.

The victim went outside and saw Eldridge sitting in his car, she said. When she got into the passenger seat, she said they argued and he backhanded her.

The two returned to Eldridge’s home, where she said he backhanded her again, causing her nose to bleed. As she was outside the home, begging to come in and get a tissue for her nose, he returned, pushed her to the ground, kicked her and dragged her out of the carport, she told investigators.

She then called 911. An ambulance crew took her to Tuomey Regional Medical Center, where doctors said she had a broken nose.

Jordan argued that the case did not reach the standard of “high and aggravated” because the woman said she was struck only twice and a broken nose is not a life-threatening injury.

Assistant District Attorney Allen Myrick said the standard for high and aggravated is either serious bodily injury or fear of serious bodily injury. Between her broken nose and her state of mind as displayed on the tape of the 911 call, he argued, the case meets the criteria for high and aggravated.

Hampton agreed that the case met the high-and-aggravated standard and sent it on to General Sessions court. If convicted, Eldridge faces a prison term of one to 10 years.


Contact Staff Writer Leslie Cantu at lesliec@theitem.com or 803-774-1250.