Repeat offender pleads guilty to strangulation, faces a year in jail.

Adam Lee Passarelli with defense attorney David Glancy.

Repeat offender pleads guilty to strangulation, faces a year in jail.

#MasonCountyCrime.

LUDINGTON — Adam Lee Passarelli, 39, no address listed, pleaded guilty today in 51st Circuit Court on the charges of assault with intent to do great bodily harm by strangulation, habitual offender fourth offense. He agreed to a plea agreement with the Mason County Prosecutor’s Office to serve one year in the Mason County Jail, along with probation.

Passarelli was arrested March 24, 2018 by the Mason County Sheriff’s Office after he attempted to strangle a woman in a home in the 5600 block of West Johnson Road in Pere Marquette Township. Passarelli told Judge Susan Sniegowski that he and the woman had been fighting and she had hit him three times.

“I asked her to stop and she wouldn’t,” he said. “I already told her that I had anger issues and in order to stop her from hitting me I put my hands around her throat and I held on for a few seconds then let go.”

Judge Sniegowski asked Passarelli that if he thought he had kept his hands around the victim’s neck longer than he should have, and he said yes.

Assault with intent to do great bodily harm by strangulation is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and/or a $5,000 fine. Passarelli was initially also charged with domestic violence third degree, a felony punishable by up to five years imprisonment and/or a $5,000 fine; that charge was dismissed as part of the plea agreement. Habitual offender status elevates each crime to a maximum of life in prison.

Passarelli has a history of criminal behavior. On Nov. 2, 2007 he was sentenced in Muskegon County’s 60th District Court on the charge of attempted assaulting/resisting/obstructing a police officer. On Jan. 20, 2015, he was convicted in Mason County’s 51st Circuit Court for larceny of a building. On March 14, 2016, he was convicted in 60th District Court for assaulting/resisting/obstructing a police officer.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday, July 17 at 1:30 p.m. in 51st Circuit Court at the Mason County Courthouse.

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