Man Charged For Assaulting Woman With Cat

A Burnsville man has been charged with domestic assault after he held a pillow over his victim’s face this week and later threw a cat at her.

Justin John Martner, 33, faces two felony charges: failure to register as a predatory offender, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, and domestic assault by strangulation, which has a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Martner, who remained in the Dakota County Jail Friday on a $50,000 bond, is also charged with two misdemeanors: interfering with a 911 call, which has a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $3,000 fine, and misdemeanor domestic assault, which has a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

According to the criminal complaint, Burnsville police were called to the victim’s home about 12:30 a.m. Tuesday on a domestic assault call.

Police found Martner lying on a couch, and the victim with a scratched and bloody face, crying and visibly shaking, the complaint says.

The victim said she and Martner had been in a romantic relationship “off and on,” and that he had come home drunk , took a frozen chicken out of the freezer and put it in a pan on the stove.

When the victim told Martner he couldn’t cook a frozen chicken in a pan, he became angry, grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the bedroom, according to the complaint. Police found a large clump of what appeared to be the victim’s hair on the floor of the bedroom.

The victim told police that she grabbed her cell phone as she was being dragged across the floor and told Martner she was going to call police. He grabbed the phone from her, then threw her on the ground, got on top of her, put his hands around her neck and choked her, the complaint says.

Martner told the victim that she was “going to [expletive] die” as he choked her, then grabbed a pillow and held it over her face while she struggled to breathe, according to the complaint.

When Martner stood up, the victim ran to her 6-year-old daughter’s room to check on her. She told police that her daughter had been awake and heard everything that happened.

Martner returned the victim’s cell phone, and she called police. While she was on the phone, Martner picked up his cat and threw it at her face, the complaint says.

Martner admitted to police that he “placed a cat” on the victim, and that the cat scratched her face, but he denied assaulting her.

Martner was convicted of criminal sexual conduct in 1994 and is required to register as a sex offender. Police learned that the address he had registered with authorities in August was for a different apartment than the one in which he was living, and he admitted intentionally registering the wrong apartment number, the complaint says.

Martner also has two previous convictions for failing to register as a predatory offender.

An omnibus hearing in Martner’s case is scheduled for Oct. 17 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.