photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Yusaf Austin appears at a hearing on Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in Douglas County District Court.

A woman is alleged to have suffered multiple knife wounds, punches and being dragged across the floor by her hair, among other abuse over the course of a few months in 2021, according to several arrest affidavits, and the alleged abuser is expected to enter into a plea agreement.

The defendant in the case, Yusaf Ali Austin, 50, of Lawrence, has been in custody for over two years in connection with the alleged crimes. The state consolidated five domestic violence cases into one because the incidents occurred in such a short period, according to court records.

Austin is currently charged in Douglas County District Court with 12 felonies, which include two counts of aggravated battery, one count of aggravated burglary, one count of tampering with a GPS tracking device, three counts of criminal threat, five counts of felony domestic battery (third or more conviction), and misdemeanor counts of violating a protective order, criminal damage and obstruction.

The charges relate to a series of incidents between February and May of 2021.

Austin appeared in court on Tuesday for a scheduled plea hearing, but his defense attorney, Angela Keck, requested a continuance to give her and Austin more time to discuss the plea, which Judge Sally Pokorny granted.

‘Your birthday was yesterday, but your funeral might be today’

The first incident that police responded to occurred on Feb. 26, 2021. The woman told police that she and Austin had been in a relationship for a number of years.

According to the affidavit, the woman said that Austin had been verbally abusing her throughout the day, finally threatening her by saying, “Your birthday was yesterday, but your funeral might be today”.

In response, the woman told Austin that she was going to call her sister for a ride and leave. She walked to the bathroom, she said, and Austin followed, reaching for her face and using a knife to cut her nose and punching her.

The woman said Austin instructed her to clean herself up before her sister arrived, according to the affidavit. Police documented the cut on the woman’s nose and bruising on her face, but she did not require medical assistance at that time. Austin had left the residence before police arrived, and he was not arrested.

Later when police were trying to get more information about the incident, the woman told them to “forget about the whole thing,” and she asked the investigator to not contact her again, according to the affidavit.

Dragged and punched

The second incident, according to the affidavit, occurred less than a week later on March 4, 2021. The woman arrived home from work around 6 p.m. to find her living room strewn with beer cans. Austin arrived shortly after, the two argued, and the woman left to visit her mother, according to the affidavit.

The woman returned home around 9 p.m. and Austin was gone. She was watching TV when he returned. He kicked open the front door, walked straight to where the woman was sitting and punched her in the eye, according to the affidavit.

Austin then poured beer on her before grabbing her hair and dragging her off the couch and across the room to the front door, according to the affidavit. During the incident, Austin is also alleged to have punched a hole in the wall and to have broken the woman’s TV, according to the affidavit. Police were unable to locate Austin.

The woman called police weeks later, on March 25, 2021, to report that Austin was with her at his friend’s house and that he had stepped out briefly to go to the store. She knew that he had multiple warrants for his arrest. The woman called after Austin hit her in the nose and stole her bank card from her purse, she said. The woman was telling an officer the story when Austin arrived, according to the affidavit.

Austin, upon seeing police, immediately turned and fled. The officer followed and was able to take Austin into custody without further incident.

He was released the next day on a $4,000 own-recognizance bond, meaning he was not required to pay any money to be released, according to the jail booking log.

‘I’ll kill you’

Two weeks later, on April 9, 2021, police responded to a Lawrence hotel where the woman and Austin had rented a room. At that point, Austin was wearing a GPS monitor that would alert law enforcement if he went near the woman’s home. In addition, the court ordered him not to have any contact with the woman whatsoever.

The woman told police that Austin had begun contacting her immediately after he was released from jail in connection with the previous incident. That night at the hotel, Austin told the woman to wake him around 9 p.m. so he could go to the liquor store. When she woke him up, Austin grew angry, she said.

Austin then took $70 cash from the woman’s purse, approached her and began striking her in the head and body, saying “Snitch bitch” and “I’ll kill you” before leaving the hotel room.

The woman called the police from the hotel lobby and said she was too afraid to return home or to the hotel room. While she was talking with police she noticed Austin had sent her multiple text messages calling her names and saying he was cutting off his GPS monitor.

Police tracked the GPS monitor to Austin’s brother’s house but were unable to locate Austin or the monitor.

In the final incident three weeks later, on May 1, 2021, the woman said she was home watching TV when she heard a key in the lock and saw the door open. It was Austin. The woman did not know Austin had a key to the residence, according to the affidavit.

She said he walked in and immediately called her a “bitch,” grabbed her and threw her against a wall that had protruding nails, which cut her, she said. Austin then pulled the woman into the bathroom, where he threw her into the bathtub and used a knife to stab her leg and repeatedly punched her, according to the affidavit.

In another court document filed by prosecutors in the case, the woman told police that while she was in the bathtub, Austin also held the knife to her toes, threatening to cut them off and actually slicing two of them. He threatened again to kill her, then left, she said.

Austin was arrested in connection with that incident when he returned to the residence on May 18, 2021. Court documents filed by Keck said Austin was apprehended in an “operational arrest” on warrants in connection with the multiple incidents and he was made to lie on the ground and was carried into a police car by officers.

In each incident, officers observed and documented bruising and wounds on the woman’s body consistent with her statements, according to the affidavit.

Austin has been in custody since May of 2021 and is being held on a $100,000 cash or surety bond. Keck has argued in multiple motions that the woman involved was in each incident too drunk to be believed and that her statements should not be admitted into evidence.

Austin has additional felony convictions in Douglas County for attempted battery on a law enforcement officer and obstruction from 2018, and aggravated assault in 1993. He was convicted of felony aggravated battery in Johnson County in 2007.

At Tuesday’s hearing it wasn’t clear what the plea offer involved. The judge reset Austin’s hearing for Nov. 1.