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’90 Day Fiancé’ Star Geoffrey Paschel Is Found Guilty Of Kidnapping And Domestic Assault
Prosecutors said Geoffrey Paschel slammed the victim’s head into the wall ‘several times,’ dragged her and stole the woman’s cell phone to prevent her from calling police.
“90 Day Fiancé” star Geoffrey Ian Paschel was found guilty of aggravated kidnapping and domestic assault and is expected to serve a minimum of 12 years behind bars after authorities said he violently attacked his former girlfriend.
The Knox County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement announcing the conviction that authorities had been called to a West Knoxville home on June 9, 2019 after getting a call about a possible domestic dispute.
They arrived to find Paschel’s girlfriend battered and bruised. She told Knox County Sheriff’s deputies that Paschel had grabbed her by the neck and “slammed her head against the wall several times” before Paschel threw her to the ground and “dragged” her.
The woman described the violence herself in a petition she filed to obtain an order of protection against the reality tv star.
“He dragged me through the house by my hair and continued throwing my body into walls and furniture,” she wrote in the petition, according to Knox News. “I know this because of blood on my walls, furniture, etc.”
The woman testified during the trial that the violence began after the couple returned home from having dinner and drinks at a local restaurant, according to E! News.
She said she went outside to walk her dog and texted a friend while she was outside, but returned to find Paschel enraged.
“The next thing I remember, he was beating me,” she said. “He had me by the back of my head and was hitting my face into the floor and I was screaming for him to stop. From there, he dragged me up the stairs…he was dragging me by my head and by my hair.”
The woman testified that she “blacked out” several times as the beating continued in her kitchen, before she woke up to find herself sitting on the couch.
“When I regained consciousness...I was sitting on the couch [in the living room] and my face was dripping blood down my chin and onto my couch and he was pacing, not saying anything, but just pacing behind the other end of my sectional, which had been overturned,” she testified.
Prosecutors said Paschel took the woman’s cell phone to prevent her from calling for help and wouldn’t let her leave the home.
Paschel had been “intoxicated” at the time, according to an affidavit of complaint previously obtained by Oxygen.com.
The woman fled to a nearby neighbor’s house after Paschel fell asleep, authorities said.
Law enforcement authorities noted that the woman had a “large, raised bruise” on her forehead along with bruises and abrasions on her “back, arms and the inside of her lip,” prosecutors said.
She was later diagnosed with a concussion.
Paschel testified in court that the woman’s injuries had been self-inflicted, telling a jury that the woman had gotten upset with him because she thought he was talking to another woman on the phone and “ran smack into the door” on her own while trying to leave the house.
He also claimed that she “ran into the wall” and “bounced around the wall” on her own, E! News reports.
He said when she left the home, he figured that “she was drunk and was going to walk it off and walk back,” but then the police arrived.
The jury didn’t buy his account and convicted him of aggravated kidnapping, domestic assault and interference with emergency calls.
“With October being Domestic Violence Awareness Month, I hope that this conviction shows victims that we will fight for them and hold their abuser accountable,” District Attorney Charme Allen said.
Due to Paschel’s previous record, he faces a sentence somewhere between 12 to 20 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
He was previously convicted in Blount County for possession with intent to sell a schedule I controlled substance and possession with intent to sell schedule II cocaine. He also has several federal drug trafficking convictions in Texas.
He is scheduled to be formally sentenced on Dec. 3.
Paschel appeared on season four of “90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days,” which followed his romance with Russian girlfriend Varya Malina.
After the criminal allegations against him surfaced, some fans urged TLC to remove him from the show.
He was not allowed to participate in a tell-all episode of the series after the next season because of the criminal allegations.
It’s not clear whether Malina—who had gotten engaged to Paschel on the series—was still involved with the reality star. In Touch reports that she took her Instagram page down after his conviction and was seemingly living in Florida earlier this year.
