AGAWAM – A Westfield man has been arrested by Agawam police on charges that include kidnapping and assault and, after arraignment, he was held on cash bail of $2,500.
In a document filed Monday in Westfield District Court, Agawam Police Officer Brandon Donovan reports that at about 4:20 a.m. that morning he and Officer Richard McDonnell responded to a call for help from a female party at the Agawam Motor Lodge and in the lobby found a female party with a noticeable black eye, as well as cuts and scratches.
The woman said that she wanted to talk to police because she had been assaulted by her boyfriend who held her against her will during a period which began about 3 p.m. on Sunday when her boyfriend started drinking and taking an unknown medication.
Donovan reports that the woman said that her boyfriend had not allowed her to leave the room or call anybody but she was able to escape when he fell asleep in the motel room.
The victim said that her boyfriend had kept her in the room by sitting in a chair placed to block the only door to the room.
She told the officers that he had kicked her side repeatedly over the previous few days while wearing leather shoes and strangled her twice to the point where she became light headed and dizzy.
The woman also told the officers that the man had said repeatedly as he was keeping her in the motel room that he would kill her if she tried to escape and told police the man had taken her cell phone saying that she “would not have contact with anyone.”
She said that the man had also pulled the phone wire from the wall to prevent her from calling for help.
The woman, Donovan reports, was treated by Agawam Fire Department ambulance personnel but declined further medical assistance.
Donovan reports that he and McDonnell went to the motel room the suspect had rented where they found the door open.
The officer reports there was no response when he announced the police presence and when he entered he observed a chair near the door and a male party asleep on the bed.
The man was awakened and identified as Rick Cordeira, 52, of 40 Shepard St., Westfield.
When asked, Cordeira identified the woman as his girlfriend but said he didn’t know where she was.
He was asked if he had been involved in any altercations with her in the past few days and said he had not but explained away her injuries by saying that she had been involved in a fight with an unknown person.
He was also asked how the telephone wire came to be disconnected from the connection at the wall and said that it had fallen out.
Cordeira was taken into custody and arrested for kidnapping, intimidation of a witness, assault and battery, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (a shod foot) and threatening to commit a crime (murder).
Later in the day he was transported to Westfield District Court where he was arraigned before Judge Philip A. Contant.
Contant set bail at $2,500 cash noting Cordeira’s extensive record, both for charges for violent crimes and failures to appear in court as ordered.
