EDWARDS/JASPER COs. – The arrest and multiple charges of a Jasper County man in more southerly Edwards County lit up social networking on the evening that his charges were announced, as many came to defend him.
But the ridiculousness of the allusion to a “he said/she said” situation, wherein each side is accusing the other of doing bad to them, doesn’t hold when one side has facial fractures and the other side is sitting in jail for it.
Nevertheless, Troy Nester, 47, of Newton, has his misguided supporters, who are claiming what a “great guy” he is…and doing nothing to explain what he was doing in Edwards County when he was alleged to have perpetrated his latest crime of violence.
Nester was charged on Feb. 1 with a January 29 incident with Lacie Miller, a woman described only in court documents as a “family member,” with:
Aggravated Domestic Battery after being accused of intentionally strangling Miller and blocking her nose and mouth with a pillow, impeding her normal breathing;
Aggravated Domestic Battery causing great bodily harm to Miller by striking her face with his fist, breaking her cheekbone;
Intimidation by threatening her to “stay in the relationship with him or he would inflict serious harm on her”; and
Domestic Battery, for striking Miller about the head with his fist, while having a prior conviction for Domestic Battery.
Nester’s priors come in from Jasper County, where court records show he’s been in trouble since he was a youth and began causing problems for authorities by getting arrested for underage drinking and, in his first charge as an adult in 1988, Battery and Criminal Damage to Property, both misdemeanors, but both of which he plead guilty to.
Since that time it’s been one thing after another, and the “great guy” has been charged with everything from DUI to battery to domestic battery.
The most recent felony domestic battery charge in Jasper came last September when he was accused again of beating Lacy (spelled differently in Jasper than in Edwards, apparently) Miller on Sept. 26.
Nester was allowed to let that felony get pled down to a misdemeanor Resisting a Peace Officer. He was given a slap on the wrist, apparently a treatment not rough enough for the tough guy - $1,147 in fines and fees, which he’d paid in full by the end of January, and seven days in jail, for which he was given credit for time served.
Under the current circumstance, he’s not been given such light treatment, perhaps because of the broken bone in Miller’s face.
Nester remains held in the White County Jail for Edwards, having made a first appearance on Feb. 2 and scheduled for a preliminary hearing right after delivery of this issue, Feb. 18. His bond is a likely-unreachable (for him, anyway) $10,000…unless some of his buddies who think he’s such a “great guy” can pool their resources and spring him.
They might want to think twice about it: This time, Miller put some effort into it and took out an Edwards County OP against the abusive Nester, with a plenary order hearing set for two days before his Feb. 18 prelim.