Woman receives protection order; husband arraigned
The morning after South Strabane Township police arrested a Washington County jail counselor in connection with an alleged domestic disturbance, a judge granted his wife a protection-from-abuse order.
Jay S. Green, 43, was arraigned Tuesday on charges of making terroristic threats, simple assault, reckless endangerment, harassment and endangering the welfare of a child.
Green, who became an inmate in the facility where he was employed to counsel those who are incarcerated, was released after posting $20,000 bond.
In court documents, Green’s wife, Barbara Wertz, wrote that the two were watching television about 8 p.m. Tuesday and Green had been drinking alcohol since he arrived home from work. Green was using unkind words toward her and was not making sense, then unlocked a safe and retrieved a rifle and spoke of shooting her and their dog, she said.
Wertz said she was able to escape to a vehicle and call police, according to the protection-from-abuse petition, but Green was beating on the car window and ordered her to return to the house.
When police arrived, they removed weapons from the home.
According to her petition filed with Washington County Court, this was not the first time Green threatened her.
Wertz said Green previously slammed her into the back of a couch, and he was charged with harassment.
“He put me up against the wall with a power drill against my forehead telling me that he was going to drill a hole in my head,” Wertz wrote in her petition.
According to online court documents, Green entered a guilty plea before District Judge Jay Weller on Feb. 15, 2012, to a summary charge of harassment by subjecting another person to physical contact. He paid $289 in fines and costs. The date of the offense was listed as Feb. 1 of that year.
President Judge Katherine B. Emery granted Wertz’s request to evict him from their home and ordered him to “not abuse, harass, stalk or threaten” her or their son, with whom the judge limited custodial contact.
She ordered Green to relinquish to the sheriff’s office any firearms license, weapons or ammunition and prohibited him from possessing, trafficking or acquiring any weapons as long as her order remains in effect.
Green was hired by the county in 1997, and he was still employed as of Friday afternoon. Jail warden John Temas declined to give any further information about Green’s status, calling the situation a “personnel issue.”