CHIPPEWA FALLS — A Chippewa Falls man accused of getting into a physical fight with his girlfriend while she was driving a car in December has now been charged.
Jacob A. Gilbert, 32, 912 Pearl St., was charged in Chippewa County Court with second-degree recklessly endangering safety, strangulation and suffocation, battery, criminal damage to property, resisting an officer, disorderly conduct and bail jumping. Gilbert was released on a $1,500 cash bond.
According to the criminal complaint, the woman showed up at the Chippewa County Sheriff’s Department lobby on Dec. 29 “distraught and visibly shaking.” She told officers she has been dating Gilbert, she was driving him to a dentist appointment along Highway 124 earlier in the day, but informed him she wouldn’t be able to drive him home.
“Gilbert became upset and grabbed the steering wheel, which caused the car to swerve into oncoming traffic,” the complaint reads. “(She) stated the cars in the other lane had to move over to avoid collision.”
She said Gilbert took out a pen and tried stabbing himself in the neck with it. She accidentally slapped him in the head while trying to stop him.
When they got back to his house, she told him to exit the vehicle. Gilbert refused and punched her in the face with a closed fist, causing her lip to start bleeding. He then wrapped his hands around her throat for several seconds. When a neighbor ran over to help, Gilbert threatened to kill that person. He grabbed the woman’s laptop from her car and threw it, causing it to break.
When officers later interviewed Gilbert, he admitted he grabbed the steering wheel “because he was not comfortable with (her) driving.”
Officers arrested Gilbert, but he attempted to kick at one officer.
Court records show Gilbert was convicted of strangulation and suffocation in 2014 in Trempealeau County Court; he lived in Whitehall at the time. He was placed on probation for three years. He also was convicted in 2014 of burglary to a building, criminal damage to property and criminal trespass in Pepin County Court; he was given a deferred prosecution.
