The district attorney’s office announced 42 year old Charles Raines received the maximum punishment of 20 years in prison for a December 2015 assault that left a woman with multiple fractures around her eye…and a February 2016 assault where Raines strangled and punched a woman in her face, then dragged her by her hair down a sidewalk.
The DA’s news release also stated during the trial that Raines made multiple attempts to threaten and intimidate both victims to keep them from cooperating with prosecutors.
Raines, who went to prison in 2001 for an aggravated assault during a bar fight, has felony charges pending in Washington and Grimes counties.
News release from the Brazos County district attorney’s office:
On Thursday, October 13, 2022, Judge Kyle Hawthorne sentenced Charles Joshua Raines to the maximum 20 years in prison for Continuous Violence Against the Family. Raines was convicted of the felony offense by a Brazos County jury on October 12, 2022. He faced an enhanced range of punishment due to a previous prison trip for Aggravated Assault.
On December 7, 2015, College Station police officers responded to a 911 call, where they found the defendant’s mother-in-law with severe swelling and large laceration to her face. The woman reported that she and Raines lived together, with her daughter and that Raines had punched her after becoming angry.
Emergency Room doctors determined that the 57 year-old woman had sustained multiple fractures in the bones around her eye where she was struck by the defendant. Raines was arrested that day for Assault Family Violence.
Just two months later, on February 8, 2016, College Station dispatch received a 911 call from a concerned citizen who reported she heard a woman screaming for help and saw a man dragging the woman by the hair down the sidewalk. College Station police responded and spoke with the victim who stated that she was pregnant with Raines’s child. The victim reported that she had recently left the defendant, and he had arrived unexpectedly at the hotel room she and her mother where she and her mother were staying.
After arriving, the defendant began strangling her. The victim was able to get outside the hotel room, but the defendant ran after her. When he caught her, the grabbed her by the hair and started dragging her back toward the hotel room. The defendant then punched the victim in in the face. Police found the victim with multiple injuries, including a black eye, as a result of the assault. Raines was again arrested for Assault Family Violence. These charges were ultimately combined and indicted as Continuous Violence Against the Family, a third-degree felony.
During trial, the jury heard that Raines had made multiple attempts to intimidate and threaten the two victims to keep them from cooperating with prosecution.
During the punishment phase of the trial, Judge Hawthorne learned about Raines’s criminal history. In 2001, the defendant was sentenced to 15 years in prison for Aggravated Assault. Raines has pending felony offenses in Grimes County and Washington, County as well as another pending domestic violence charge with a different victim.
Assistant district attorneys Amy Eades and Jessica Escue issued the following statement: “Our community is safer because of the bravery of the victims and witnesses who took a stand against this defendant’s repeated violence, intimidation, and threats. Because of the diligence, professionalism, and courage of the emergency room medical staff, law enforcement, this defendant received the justice he deserved.”