Man accused of choking woman in Latrobe, damaging police station holding cell

A 40-year-old man was arrested for allegedly assaulting and choking a Latrobe woman and damaging a city holding cell as he waited to be questioned by police.

Donald E. Kunkle III of Donegal was arrested by police on charges of harassment, institutional vandalism, simple assault and strangulation in connection with an incident Sunday at a residence in the 1400 block of Jefferson Street.

Police reported they were dispatched to the home after a neighbor reported a woman came to her porch door about 2 p.m. and said she needed help. The neighbor said the woman had red marks on both side of her neck.

Police said the woman fled when the neighbor told her she was going to call police.

Officer Michael Wigand reported the neighbor told him the story, but did not know where the woman went.

While searching the neighborhood, police heard a woman scream from the second floor of a house on Jefferson Street.

Police asked both occupants to come out and Wigand asked the the woman about the red marks around her neck but “she denied Kunkle touched her.”

Police reports said the woman also denied asking a neighbor for help and said she “likely scratched her neck herself.”

Kunkle denied any wrongdoing, and officers took him to the police station for questioning.

Wigand said Kunkle “became confrontational” and spit on security cameras in the holding cell area. Police also allege that he dumped water from a toilet in the cell.

In 2015, Kunkle pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated assault for threatening police and two customers with a knife at the Sheetz store on Harvey Avenue in Greensburg. Kunkle was sentenced to serve a 3- to 10-year sentence in that case.

Kunkle was released Monday on unsecured bond pending a preliminary hearing Dec. 28. He did not have an attorney listed in court documents and could not be reached for comment.