Kristopher Weitzel, 53, appeared in Lincoln County District Court on Monday, April 29 to face several charges — domestic assault, strangulation, false imprisonment, terroristic threats, possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and disturbing the peace.

The charges were file about a year ago, after Weitzel held police in a standoff on Burlington Ave., and then beat up his live-in girlfriend a few days later.

In a plea bargain worked out by attorneys, all of the charges were dropped but two. Weitzel pled no contest and was convicted.

His sentencing is scheduled for July 14.

The victim believes that attorneys agreed on a three-year, “hard-time” prison sentence in exchange for Weitzel’s no contest plea.

She is afraid that three years is not enough, that Weitzel will come after her when he gets out.

She spent several months in treatment for addiction and psychological counseling after the assault.

She gave her account of what happened to police, but was not interviewed by the county attorney. With help from a probation officer, she is currently preparing a statement for the judge to consider before sentencing, but fears the deal is set. She doubts her statement will matter much.

In plea bargains, judges often agree with the recommendation of the attorneys.

“Abuse makes you feel irrelevant,” the woman said. “It feels like the court doesn’t really care either.”

She and her closest friends wonder why Weitzel was not put away long ago, given his history of domestic violence.

The record

In 2010, Weitzel was charged with strangulation and two counts of third-degree assault. The strangulation charge was dismissed In court. The court fined him $100 for each assault charge.

In 2022, he was charged with domestic assault against his ex-wife.

That time, he was sentenced to 14 months of probation. He completed 10 months but then failed to comply, according to Lincoln County District Court records.

In June 2023, he was charged with domestic assault against his girlfriend as well as terroristic threats and use of a firearm to commit a felony. His girlfriend said he put a gun in her mouth.

At about the same time, his ex-wife, who was the victim of assaults in 2010 and 2022, asked the court for a protection order against him. She said she’d found bullet holes on the deck of his house when she went back to get belongings after the divorce. In her request for the protection order, she said Weitzel had 30-40 guns stored with a friend, that he was alcoholic, prone to violence, unpredictable, hallucinatory and sometimes suicidal.

The 2023 charges against him ended in a plea bargain, as criminal cases often do.

The benefit of plea bargaining for both the prosecution and the defense is that there is no risk of a complete loss at trial. And, plea agreements lessen the workload for attorneys and judges, allowing them to focus on the most demanding cases. (see related article on this website)

In the plea deal for the 2023 charges, the firearm and terroristic threats charges were dismissed and Weitzel was convicted of domestic assault. He was sentenced to 243 days in jail.

However, by the time he was sentenced, he had already served half his time in jail while his case worked through the courts. At sentencing, he received credit for the time he’d served, shortening his sentence by half. In addition, “good time” provisions cut sentences in half if convicts don’t cause trouble in jail. So, by the time Weitzel was sentenced, he only had a few days left to serve.

Then came 2024.

On the afternoon of April 29, Weitzel fired a shotgun outside his house in his neighborhood in the 1500 block of Burlington Blvd. When police arrived, he went inside and refused to come out for more than five hours.

Once that afternoon, he went out the backdoor with his shotgun, perhaps hoping to commit “suicide by cop.” His girlfriend, who was talking by phone with police at the scene, told officers that he would want to do that. It didn’t happen, however. An officer ordered him to put his gun down. Weitzel ignored him and went back inside.

When police called him by cellphone, he asked them to bring him vodka, the court affidavit said.

Around 7:45 p.m. that evening, police tossed a chemical grenade in the back door and thereby forced Weitzel out the front, carrying the shotgun. Fortunately, he put the gun down on the porch, walked or staggered out on the lawn and was apprehended. No shots were fired.

After he was taken away, police found another loaded shotgun and two rifles inside the house. Weitzel was first taken to the hospital for treatment. When he was released, he was charged with possession of a firearm by a felon and disturbing the peace and put in jail. Bond was set at a hefty sum, $250,000.

Unlike many inmates, Weitzel had enough money to hire his own attorney, court records say. Not only that, on May 9, he paid the required 10%, or $25,000 of the bond and was set free.

He didn’t avoid trouble. Just five days later, he held his girlfriend hostage. She said he kept her in the bedroom for three days, beating her every time she made a move to leave the bedroom-bathroom area.

He was drinking heavily the whole time, she said.

Weitzel passed out and she eventually escaped. She grabbed the car keys and ran out barefoot and got into the car. She pulled out of the driveway just as he came out the door after her. She drove up to a police cruiser who had a motorist pulled over a few blocks away. She begged for help.

Police found Weitzel lying in the alley a couple blocks from his house, thanks to a tip from a neighbor.

They locked him up again.

Also, police found evidence of the assault – bruises on the woman’s neck indicated strangulation. Blood was on the bed. A bloody knife on the nightstand verified her story that he held it to her throat. She told police that he must have held the knife backwards, because he cut his hand. Weitzel’s hand was cut, verifying his girlfriend’s story, the arresting officer told the Lincoln County Court.

He’s been in jail since. Now he’s awaiting the sentence that the attorneys have bargained for.

His girlfriend is furious.

“They sat around for a year and didn’t even talk to me,” she said. “I don’t trust them. Something is wrong with all that.”

She said enforcement was lax while he was on probation.

“He avoided meetings and calls from his probation officer. After a high-speed chase, he told police that he was hallucinating, so they would take him to Richard Young instead of jail. He bragged about being an outlaw. He told me that he had enough weapons to hold them off if they came after him. He said they’d be too scared to try.”

“The trouble was, no one ever really held him accountable; that’s why he kept doing it,” she said.

Her friend Dave Harrold said he’s not qualified to criticize the county attorney because he doesn’t know all the facts.

“But intuitively,’ Harrold said, “in looking this situation and at Nathan Creel’s assault on Nikki Fitch, when charges are dropped in several cases, you have to wonder — is that a pattern, a coincidence or what? What’s going on?”

“As a society, we care about women’s rights. But how a woman’s right not to get beat up?” he said.

The Lincoln County prosecutor declined to comment for this report.

(This report was first published in the Bulletin’s April 30 print edition.)

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