A Harrisburg woman and ex-girlfriend of a Schuylkill County man testified Tuesday about the three hours of physical abuse she endured at his hands during an incident back in June.
That ex-girlfriend took the stand at a preliminary hearing for Dakota Zakashefski, 23, of Minersville, at District Court in Port Carbon on Tuesday. Zakashefski is charged with counts of simple assault, false imprisonment, and harassment for his alleged actions in early June against the victim.
He also faces similar charges for similar actions against a second woman and has been in jail since late last month, unable to post bail in either case.
On Tuesday, the victim testified that she went to Zakashefski’s apartment in Minersville on June 3 so they could exchange personal belongings after a break-up. At the time she arrived, she said Zakashefski’s father was there but he left about 10 minutes later because the two of them did not see eye-to-eye.
Zakashefski, however, asked the victim to stay and talk. She testified that as she went to leave the apartment, Zakashefski got between her and the door, preventing her from getting away.
After that, the victim said Zakashefski held her captive in his apartment for about two hours.
“I told him I could not stay,” she testified.
She added that Zakashefski tried kissing her and then pushed her into the apartment, away from the door.
Physical abuse amplified, she said, when Zakashefski started accusing the victim of being pregnant, she said.
“He grabbed me by my hair and pulled me across the room,” she said. “I kept asking him to stop.”
As he was dragging her across the apartment by her hair, the victim testified that she hit her head on a guitar. That’s when he got on top of her, she said, and began punching her in the abdomen.
She said that Zakashefski, as he was punching her in the abdomen, wished that the baby he believed she was carrying would die.
While this was happening, the victim said she remembered screaming loudly and saying to her ex, “Please don’t do this!”
She said she was eventually able to get into the hallway outside her ex’s apartment but he pulled her back inside and then pushed her onto his bed. She said he threatened to sexually assault her and called her derogatory names.
Finally, the victim said she did leave the apartment and got to her car but couldn’t think about driving away.
She said, “I was shaking so bad, I couldn’t even find my keys. If I would have tried to drive, I probably would have crashed my car.”
Also preventing her from leaving, she said, was Zakashefski, who had come out to her car and pushed her window down and essentially sat on the door. She said while he did this, he was touching her face.
The entire ordeal carried on for about three hours, the victim said.
When asked why she didn’t call police immediately, the victim said she kept her phone in her car because Zakashefski had broken several of her devices in the past.
She said she visited an urgent care the following day close to her home in Harrisburg. She said she wasn’t hurt initially but the following day she felt pain caused by Zakashefski’s alleged assault.
On June 4, because her phone service was not active, the victim said she emailed Minersville police about what had happened. Police, she said, told her she’d need to come to Minersville to file a formal complaint against Zakashefski, which took some time because she said she didn’t have the gas money to come up here from Harrisburg.
Plachko agreed with Assistant District Attorney David Noon that there was enough evidence presented at Tuesday’s hearing to hold over all charges against Zakashefski for Schuylkill County Court.
A preliminary hearing on the second case against him is scheduled for next Tuesday.
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