Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, especially if there’s a laptop within striking distance of her boyfriend’s head. One woman in Florida was arrested after her and her boyfriend had an intense argument over alleged cheating that led to a violent confrontation, according to an arrest affidavit. The boyfriend began recording the dispute on his phone, perhaps as a way to keep the woman from getting angry, but that only made the situation worse.
57-year-old woman was charged with three felonies after intense argument
On October 3 at around 1:23 p.m., 57-year-old Christianne Costa Stephens was arrested after she struck her boyfriend’s head with a laptop that knocked him unconscious and left a substantial laceration, according to an arrest affidavit from the Clearwater Police Department as reviewed by local outlet 10 Tampa Bay News.
Police say that the domestic dispute between the couple started over accusations of “cheating in the relationship.” It’s unclear from the arrest affidavit whether the woman or the man was the one being accused of infidelity, but either way, the fight escalated to the point that Stephens allegedly tried to prevent her boyfriend from leaving the residence. This caused the man “to fear that he could not leave,” as though he was imprisoned in his own home.
That’s when the boyfriend decided to record Stephens using his phone. That made Stephens even angrier, causing her to grab a laptop and strike him in the head with enough force to knock him out, despite the fact that he was recording the incident. The blow left a “large laceration,” with police indicating that “any additional head injury and permanent scarring is unknown at this time.”
When the man regained consciousness, he saw her going through his phone in an attempt to delete the recording. Police said she told him that “he was not going anywhere until he deleted the video evidence of the battery.” The affidavit doesn’t say whether she was successful in getting rid of the recording, but that didn’t matter much when officers arrived on the scene and arrested Stephens at around 1:23 a.m.
Stephens later admitted to police that she indeed hit her boyfriend with the laptop, though she says it wasn’t her intention to hit him and that she was allegedly “shoving the laptop at him to get him to leave.” In other words, she claimed that she wasn’t imprisoning her boyfriend in the home and in fact wanted him to get out. However, it would seem as though the officers were not entirely convinced by her argument given the subsequent charges.
Booking records from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office inmate search show that Stephens was booked in jail around two hours later at 3:26 a.m. The records state that she is 5’4″ and weighs 137 lbs.
Stephens was charged with aggravated battery with physical disfigurement, false imprisonment, and witness tampering. The charge of false imprisonment comes as a result of her preventing the man from leaving the premises, while the charge of witness tampering is due to her trying to delete evidence of the battery. All three counts are considered felonies.
Stephens made her first appearance in court before a judge in Pinellas County and was held on a $20,000 bond, $10,000 for the aggravated battery charge and $5,000 each for the witness tampering and false imprisonment charges. She was released the following day, October 4, on a surety bond of the full amount.
As part of the bond, Stephens has been ordered not to have any contact with the victim. She is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.
