A Long Island man faces charges accusing him using his van to pin his pregnant fiancee against a bridge abutment during an argument.
Joseph Cirella, 50, of Bethpage, and his fiancee started to argue when she became frightened by his erratic driving as they cruised along the Northern State Parkway Saturday afternoon in Westbury, according to the state police.
The woman, who told investigators she is 14 weeks pregnant, asked Cirella to pull over so she could get out of the vehicle. He initially refused to pull over and at one point attempted to push her out of the moving van, she told troopers.
She managed to get out of the van as it slowed to a near stop, but became pinned between the van and an overpass abutment. A trooper spotted the screaming woman at that point.
Cirella was subsequently arrested and the woman, whose identity wasn't available, was taken to a nearby hospital where she was treated and released.
Cirella was charged with felony counts of second-degree assault, third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and first-degree unlawful imprisonment. He was also charged with several misdemeanors, police said. He was being held on $20,000 bond.
There was no indication that he had retained a lawyer to comment on the charges.
