Rosemount Man Charged with Felony Domestic Assault

A Rosemount man has been charged with felony domestic assault in connection with a Sunday incident in which he is accused of hitting and choking his girlfriend.

If convicted, Thomas James Moeller, 39, of 14595 Cimarron Ave. W., faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. He is being charged with a felony because he has two previous domestic assault convictions against the same victim on his record.

According to the complaint, filed in Dakota County District Court in Hastings, arrived at Moeller’s apartment just before 2 a.m. Sunday after a neighbor called police to report that there was a fight going on.

Moeller denied that “anything physical” had occurred, according to the complaint. He told police that he and his girlfriend had been together for 11 years and that he had recently discovered she was cheating on him with their next-door neighbor.

Moeller told police that when he confronted her about her infidelity, she attacked him, and he held up his arm in self-defense. He showed police a mark on his forearm that he said was a bite mark.

However, according to the complaint, the mark was on the inside of Moeller’s forearm rather than the outside, “where she would have to have bitten him in order to have done it in the way the defendant described.”

Moeller’s girlfriend told officers that she had been drinking with a friend next door. When she came home, she said, Moeller grabbed her left arm and twisted it until the cigarettes she was holding fell to the ground. She said Moeller hit her in the mouth and put his hands around her neck for a short time.

The complaint says the victim had visible marks on her lip and a swollen wrist.

Moeller has a criminal history that includes convictions for fifth-degree domestic assault in 2003 and misdemeanor domestic assault in 2004.

He is free on $75,000 bond and was ordered to have no contact with the victim. An omnibus hearing in his case is scheduled for May 16 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.