Felony choking charge against repeat offender dismissed after victim fails to appear
photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World
A felony charge against a man accused of choking a woman was dismissed Thursday after the victim became uncooperative and failed to appear at the defendant’s preliminary hearing.
The defendant, Timothy Lamont Joseph Cable, 29, had faced a charge of aggravated domestic battery, but Judge Amy Hanley, at the state’s request, dismissed the case without prejudice, meaning it could be brought again. Assistant District Attorney Jenna Phelps told Hanley that the victim had become “uncooperative.”
Cable still faces a misdemeanor count of domestic battery against the same victim, but the parties indicated that her failure to cooperate in the felony case would likely impact the misdemeanor case as well. Arguments in that case will be heard by a different judge on Friday.
Cable has had multiple run-ins with the law, as the Journal-World has reported. In September of last year he was given a year of probation in a plea agreement that resolved multiple cases, including an incident last summer in which he allegedly cut a man with a knife during a fight near downtown Lawrence.
He was originally charged with one felony count of aggravated battery in that case, but was able to plead it down to a misdemeanor.
He also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor domestic battery in connection with an altercation with his girlfriend last spring, as well as to a misdemeanor charge of violating a protection order.
Before his arrest in the 2023 incidents, Cable had been given a year’s worth of probation for convictions of misdemeanor theft, battery and domestic battery that occurred in Douglas County in 2022. Cable also has battery and drug possession convictions from 2013.