A Niles man charged with attempted assault by strangulation will serve 120 days in the Berrien County Jail and 30 months on probation, after being sentenced in Berrien County Trial Court Monday by Judge Angela Pasula.
Jose Araguz, 25, of Niles, was intoxicated the night he strangled his girlfriend, choking her to the point where capillaries burst under her skin and in her eyes, causing small red dots to form on her face, where there was bleeding under the skin. The injury is known as petechia.
“This is probably the most significant injuries I have seen in a domestic violence strangulation, short of death,” Pasula said.
The victim reported the assault to the Niles Police Department on Jan. 28. According to a police report, the victim said that she and Araguz had attended a birthday party on Jan. 27, where he became intoxicated.

On the drive home, with their children in the back seat, Araguz became verbally abusive, the victim said. He also hit her on the shoulder while she was driving.
Back at their apartment, Araguz fell into a wall, creating a hole. He then passed out, but was said to have awoken when the victim confronted him about the hole in the wall.
That is when Araguz rushed the victim to the ground and began choking her between his forearm and bicep, the report stated.
Araguz claimed that he was too intoxicated to recall what had happened.
The victim addressed the court that morning and said she had known “Joey” for almost six years.
“This has never happened to me before,” she said.
According to the victim, Araguz does not drink excessively, but when he does drink, it can bring out the anger in him. The evening they were at the party, she said he had been peer pressured into drinking.
As a result of the assault, the victim said she had been attending counseling and going to a safe shelter.
Araguz does not have prior convictions for violence. According to his attorney, Scott Sanford he has one prior use of marijuana conviction. Araguz admitted to smoking marijuana at least every other day.
Sanford said his client is a hard worker, who has taken care of his family. Since the incident, Sanford said Araguz had been remorseful.
Before his sentence was given, Araguz addressed the court. With a voice shaking from emotion, Araguz said that he did have too much to drink that night and regretted his actions.
“I am really sorry,” he said. “It is definitely not my behavior. I cannot take away from anything that happened. I have to have to make better decisions. It is something I would never have imagined myself doing.”
Pasula said that Araguz was the one responsible for how much alcohol he had been drinking. Being drunk was no excuse for being violent, Pasula said.
“This was a very violent act,” Pasula said. “Anger is one thing. It is a human emotion to become angry. Violence is another. Violence is not a human emotion. Violence is a choice.”
Assistant Prosecutor Cortney O’Malley-Septoski also addressed the severity of Araguz’s crime and said it takes an excessive amount of force to cause petechia.
O’Malley-Septoski said that the victim should not in any circumstance have to accept that kind of behavior.
“She should not take that,” O’Malley-Septoski said.
In addition to jail time, Araguz will also complete a domestic violence intervention and parenting classes, K-PEP, and he will spend 90 days on the monitoring program.