This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A Grand County sheriff's deputy is accused of assaulting his wife.
Austin Lynn Stubblefield was charged Friday in 7th District Court with domestic violence assault, a class A misdemeanor.
The deputy says he punched his wife in the face in self-defense, according to police.
Stubblefield, 35, was arrested Sept. 20 by Moab police officers investigating a domestic-violence allegation and booked into San Juan County Jail. He was released about an hour later on $5,000 bond.
Stubblefield's first court appearance is scheduled for Tuesday morning, according to court documents.
According to a probable-cause statement, Stubblefield's wife said she and her husband got into an argument about their children and that she deliberately knocked his two pairs of glasses off a dresser. The woman said her husband got angry and that the next thing she remembers is waking up in the bathroom.
Stubblefield was wiping her hands off with a rag, the wife said, and she was "very dazed and confused after she had regained consciousness," the statement says.
The woman called two friends, who took her to the emergency room at Moab Regional Hospital, the statement says. Officers were told that she had a broken nose, a fractured right orbital socket, several right ear lacerations that required stitches, a chipped front tooth and a concussion, according to the statement.
When police arrested Stubblefield at his residence, he reportedly said that his head and left ear hurt and he wanted to be checked by medical personnel. After being seen at the hospital, he was taken to jail.
A Grand County dispatcher told police the deputy had contacted her and said he had punched his wife in the face but that it was in self-defense, the probable-cause statement says. Stubblefield also sent several pictures he had taken of himself to the dispatcher that showed a scratch with bruising under his left eyebrow and a scratch on his left ear, the statement says.
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