Police arrest man after victim calls from Circle K restroom

A man faces charges after an alleged assault on a woman on Sunday.

Mauricio Martinez-Molina was arrested about 2:46 p.m. Sunday and charged with Assault, Aggravated Assault and Preventing Use of a Telephone in an Emergency, according to police.

Police were summoned to the Circle K at Honeycutt and Porter roads about 1 a.m. Sunday by a woman who was calling from the restroom, according to a probable cause statement. The woman told police she and Martinez-Molina, whom she knew, had an argument between 1 and 5:30 a.m. when it escalated as he allegedly grabbed her, wrapped his arm around her head and began to strike her in the back of the head with his closed fist, according to police.

An injury to her chin was visible through a fresh scratch, police said.

The woman told police that when she began to cry, Martinez-Molina allegedly put both of his hands over her mouth in an attempt to prevent her two adult daughters from hearing her cry. She told police she struggled to breathe and felt as if she was “fighting for her life.”

Later, around 2 p.m. that the afternoon, the woman told police she and Martinez-Molina were leaving a home on West Patricia Lane in Desert Passage. She entered the driver’s side of the vehicle while he entered on the passenger side. He then allegedly punched her on the right forearm, demanding he drive and took the keys.

Officers observed redness and discoloration on her right arm, police said.

He began driving and told her he wanted to go to the mountains. Frightened of what he might do to her, she told him she was hungry and asked him to stop at the Circle K, where she called from the restroom.

When officers arrived there, she told them she was experiencing pain on her head and neck. While photographing her injuries officers observed a fresh scratch to the left wrist, but were unable to confirm if the injury was related to the incident, according to the police report.

Martinez-Molina told officers he was not a citizen of the United States and the only identification he had was a Sonoran driver’s license and a Mexican voter ID, police said.

He was not being held at Pinal County Jail, according to online inmate records, and there was no further information in the police report.