Bernard O. Everson reached a plea agreement, pleading guilty to one count of Aggravated Assault and one count of Simple Assault for two separate domestic assaults against two different women. He was sentenced to serve 5-15 years in a state correctional institution.
On April 24, 2014, the victim, a girlfriend of Everson’s, was at his home talking to his sister. Everson came into his sister’s room and told the victim to leave and threw her bag into the hallway. The victim and Everson’s sister started laughing, which caused Everson to grow angry. He proceeded to choke the victim 4-5 times to the point that she began to blackout. When the victim was able to leave the house, Everson sent her a text message that he was going to “f— her life up.” Everson was charged with one count of Simple Assault for this incident.
In the second case, on January 11, 2015, Everson was at another girlfriend’s house in Harrisburg city. Around 12:30 a.m. , he demanded that victim sign on to her Facebook account so he could review what she was doing online and who she was talking to. When the victim refused, Everson became irate and began to strangle the victim with both hands. She told police that this assault occurred over ten times throughout the early morning. She said that she blacked out during the strangulation and had visible red marks on her neck. Everson used his elbow to strangle the victim throughout the morning. Additionally, the victim’s 3-year-old daughter was present at the time of these assaults. Everson proceeded to make several threatening statements saying that he would kill the victim and her kids, and threatened to burn her house and her mother’s house down.
She attempted to get away, but Everson followed her wherever she went throughout the house and would pull her by her hair. He also damaged some of the victim’s property, as he smashed the screen to the her new RCA tablet and poured liquid detergent into the cable box for her television.
After two hours of this activity, the victim managed to lock herself in her bathroom. Everson proceeded to break down the door to gain access to the victim, where he proceeded to urinate on the victim.
Finally, around 8:45 a.m. the victim was able to grab her daughter and run out of the house and call for help. As a result of those actions, Everson was charged with Aggravated Assault for causing or attempting to cause serious bodily injury to the victim.
Everson was in court on February 9 where he appeared before Judge John F. Cherry with the negotiated deal.
