Man, 77, Accused of Choking 23-Year-Old Woman He Met on Dating Site: Cops
A 77-year-old Virginia man has been accused of assaulting a younger woman who cops say he met on a dating site.
Alan Schmitt was arrested by Newport News cops and charged with allegedly choking the unnamed 23-year-old after she called police Tuesday.
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Schmitt showed up to meet the woman on Tuesday, according to an arrest affidavit first obtained by WAVY. She later told police he was "much older than he made himself out to be" on the site Plenty of Fish.
The woman said she told Schmitt she was not interested in dating, but that they could be friends.
Schmitt then took the woman to a shopping mall, where he spent $400 dollars on her, according to police documents.
At some point after their shopping trip, authorities say Schmitt asked for the items he'd bought her to be returned to him, including a shirt the woman was wearing.
"[When] she told him he could not have the shirt back," the affidavit says Schmitt "grabbed her around the neck... then threw her to the ground."
The woman told police Schmitt then choked her and she had to "struggle to breathe."
When questioned by police outside the scene of the alleged assault, Schmitt said he hadn't choked her but only accidentally grabbed her by the neck after she pushed him and he struggled to keep his balance.
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Noting the scratches on the woman's neck and the accounts of witnesses corroborating her account, cops arrested Schmitt and later charged him with felony strangling of another causing wounds or injury.
He is due in court Nov. 14.
