A man has been charged with a brutal sexual attack. Now he is asking that the media does not talk about it.

Picture of Jose Arreola courtesy of Dallas County Jail.

Yesterday I spent most of the day at the Dallas County courthouse. I was covering the story of Mary Ann Escamilla, a woman that according to court documents was severely beaten and sexually assaulted by Jose Arreola, her ex-boyfriend.

A bail request form describes the attack. It states that the suspect brutally beat the victim. After she was knocked unconscious the suspect sodomized her and cut her in her vagina and rectum with a sharp object. Mary told me that she remembers praying to God during the attack, asking him to end her pain and her life. She said she does not know how is she still alive. She received 500 stitches to close her wounds.

Now she is terrorized by the possibility that Arreola could be a free man. He was first arrested and charged with aggravated assault, but was able to get out of jail after posting a $350,000 bond. Then he was arrested one more time and charged with aggravated sexual assault. Yesterday, Judge Fred Tinsley set bail for his release in the amount of $750,000.

While these pretrial proceedings take place Arreola has also filed a motion to restrict publicity of this case. He said that media coverage could have a prejudicial effect when his case goes to trial. He asked that neither the defense, prosecutors, witnesses, court staff nor enforcement officers involved should be permitted to talk about the case.

What happened to Mary is another example of the need in our society to be aware and talk about the devastating effects domestic violence has.

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