A North Augusta man picked the wrong time to attend a baseball game.
Paul Belue Jones, 28, went to Thursday’s night between the GreenJackets and Columbia Fireflies and caught the eye of his ex-girlfriend and family.
Emilee Craven, 19, has been waiting on Jones to surrender or get served a warrant for assault & battery in the second degree. She alleged that he attacked her inside his Vireo Drive home in February. She had filed charges in April after the abuse continued and she broke up, according to a North Augusta police report.
Craven provided investigators with a series of Jones’ text confessions where he apologized and excused the incident as “playing rough.”
“I should have realized that I was stronger than you,” he said. “What I thought was playing rough could be different to you.”
“I don’t know how you thought I was playing when I kept telling you stop & no,” she replied. “You hurt my wrist and face & call that ‘playing’?”
“I know. I f**ked up,” Jones allegedly replied.
But he was still a free man until she and her stepfather pointed him out to cops on Thursday at SRP Park in North Augusta. They verified the warrant and grabbed Jones as he appeared to be leaving the game with his new girlfriend.
According to a North Augusta police report, Craven told officers that she was a server at an Augusta restaurant where Craven was one of the managers. They were dating in February and were at his home. That’s when he allegedly pushed her against a counter and used his body weight to hold her there.
She said Jones kept her against the counter until he realized she was crying. “He cut her ear on his broken bathroom mirror,” a report says.
In a second incident, Craven told police that Jones assaulted her during an argument in April after she asked him not to speak to her that way. He allegedly slapped her and ordered her to “get in the f***ing truck.” There is no indication he was charged in that case.
Jones was released from jail Friday on a $3,000 bond.
“I just didn’t understand why it took so long (to arrest him)” Craven told The Jail Report. “But he got served in front of everybody. … He was arrested in front of half of North Augusta.”
