Crime & Safety
Forks Township Man Charged with Assault on Wife
Court records say Forks Township man twice slammed wife's face into steering wheel.
A Forks Township man twice slammed his wife’s face into the steering wheel of her pickup truck as her two children watched from the back seat, court records say.
The incident involving the suspect, Joshua John Erney, 32, and his wife, Christina Bohning Erney, occurred as the husband drove his wife’s Ford F250 along S. 25th Street in Palmer Township around 8:50 Friday night.
Joshua Erney already had fled when police found the pickup at Freemansburg Avenue and Milford Street. The wife had a 3-inch open cut under her right eye, a half-inch open cut under her neck and a golf-ball-size lump near her left temple.
She told police she was in the front passenger seat while her husband drove along S. 25th Street. They got into a “verbal argument” and she tried to get out of the truck “for her safety.”
Her husband then slammed on the brakes, throwing her toward the windshield, she told police. She said he then grabbed her by the hair and twice slammed her face into the steering wheel.
Joshua Erney, of 1011 2L George St., was charged with simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, harassment, careless driving and driving under a suspended license – the suspended license a condition of being accepted into the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD) program for a previous first-time offense.
He was arraigned Sunday night by on-duty District Judge Douglas Schlegel of Wind Gap and released on $20,000 unsecured bail.