COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) – The case against 46-year-old Richard Stolte of Kinderhook Township, who was charged following an alleged confrontation with a female acquaintance in early February, has been bound over to Branch County Circuit Court following a preliminary exam in District Court Tuesday.
Stolte is scheduled to appear for a Circuit Court pre-trial conference April 29 on charges of assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder and domestic violence, third offense.
The charges stem from a second alleged violent incident involving Stolte and the woman in recent months.
Stolte was free on bond after entering a guilty plea to a charge of throwing an object at a vehicle in connection with a December 12, 2018 incident in which he threw a hammer and injured the woman at his home on East Copeland Road.
Stolte got a 93 day jail sentence for throwing the hammer. He told the Michigan State Police he was not trying to hit the woman when he threw the hammer. State Police said at the time the woman rammed her vehicle into Stolte’s vehicle during an argument.
In exchange for his plea in the first case, a felonious assault charge was initially dismissed by the Branch County Prosecutor’s Office but it has since been reinstated by Prosecutor Valerie White following the alleged February incident.
