Domestic abuser, 50, ‘put his girlfriend on a leash when she tried to leave him and treated her like a dog’

A MAN in Texas admitted on Thursday to restraining his girlfriend of six years with a dog leash and shoving her to the ground when she tried to leave him.

Lonnie Pittman, 50, and the woman were arguing on the morning of December 20, 2016 in Pittman’s house in Wichita Falls, a Texas town near the Oklahoma border.

When the victim went to the front door to leave, he grabbed a dog leash off the wall and put it around her neck before telling her, “you are not leaving here,” according to an affidavit obtained by the Wichita Falls Times Record News.

He kept her leashed and pushed her down multiple times when she tried to escape.

Pittman admitted the facts of the assault to the police, the Wichita Falls Times Record News reports.

While he was being booked, police said they found a small amount of methamphetamine on Pittman, but the possession charge was dismissed in the face of his domestic abuse charge, according to the Wichita Falls Times Record News.

The charges against Pittman suggest the abuse was ongoing, as he was convicted for the sadistic act under the “Continuous Violence Against the Family” law, according to Wichita County Jail records.

The Texas Criminal Code statute applies to a pattern of two or more physical assaults against a member of one’s family or household within a span of twelve months.

Pittman was sentenced to two years. But he was locked up for 480 days awaiting trial, and a plea deal allows him to count that time served toward his sentence.

He will serve approximately eight more months before being released.