A warrant has been issued Jan. 5 for a 38-year-old Amherst man after he skipped sentencing for assaulting a pregnant woman.
Keith D. Burton pleaded guilty Nov. 3, 2017, to an amended indictment with two counts of abduction and a misdemeanor count of domestic violence connected to several Dec. 8, 2016, incidents in Lorain.
Burton was scheduled to be sentenced in the case before Lorain County Common Pleas Judge D. Chris Cook on Jan. 5, but he failed to appear before the court closed at 4 p.m.
According to a Lorain police report, officers were dispatched to a home in the 1500 block of East 28th Street shortly after receiving a 911 hang-up call where a man, later identified as Burton, requested officers, but then hung up without giving further details.
Before officers arrived, a second call was received from the 26-year-old pregnant victim on East 30th Street. She told officers Burton assaulted her in a field behind the 1500 block of East 28th Street after he’d broken into her apartment and dragged her into a vehicle, the report said.
When officers checked security footage at the victim’s apartment, they saw Burton enter her unit uninvited at 1:22 a.m. and attempting to enter again at 3:53 a.m., the report said.
The woman told officers she had left her apartment around 4:30 a.m. to wait for a bus, but Burton drove up in a white Chrysler PT Cruiser and forced her into the car by her hair.
The victim also claimed Burton punched her in the nose, the report said.
Officers were unable to corroborate the woman’s story using surveillance footage, but her nose appeared “swollen and curved as if it was possibly broken,” according to the report.
Burton had been banned from the woman’s apartment complex in April 2016, the report said.
When Burton is arrested, he will be held at the Lorain County Jail until his sentence is handed down.