Venice man accused of battery on pregnant woman

VENICE — A Venice man was arrested after allegedly battering a pregnant woman and breaking her cell phone during a call to 911.

Mackenzie Alexander Egeland, 30, 600 block of Bird Bay Drive, was in the Sarasota County Jail on Wednesday, charged with aggravated battery on a victim he knew or should have known was pregnant, hindering communication with law enforcement and false imprisonment.

All the charges are felonies. His bond was $55,000.

According to a Venice Police Department report, officers responded at about 11:19 p.m. July 14 to a report of a man and a woman in a physical altercation. They found the victim seated outside.

She told the officers she had just returned and was in her room to avoid Egeland "because she could tell he had been drinking," the affidavit says. He was doing a livestream on social media at the time, it says.

When she asked him to leave after he entered the room, it says, he became upset and swept her belongings off the top of her dresser, breaking some.

She then told him to leave the dwelling, after which he ripped her shirt off, exposing her chest to his livestream audience. She put on another shirt and tried to leave the room, but Egeland blocked her and screamed obscenities at her, according to the affidavit.

She threw a TV remote into another room to try to distract him, it says, but he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her into another room. Officers observed swelling over the victim's right eye where she said he grabbed her, the affidavit says.

She ran outside when he let go of her hair and called 911, but Egeland followed her, grabbed her by the hair again and pulled her downstairs, cutting her leg, it says.

He took her phone and tried to end the call to 911, it says, then threw the phone, breaking the screen.

The victim told the officers Egeland knows she's pregnant.

The affidavit says Egeland told the officers "he had no knowledge of what was going on," saying he had been trying to avoid the victim because she's being "manic." He denied touching her or knowing how she cut her leg.

Asked if he had taken and thrown her phone, he said "he maybe did but does not know," it says.

"The defendant continued to tell officers throughout questioning that he was unaware of what he did wrong and stated he had no knowledge of any incident occurring," it says.

Egeland has a record of arrests in the county dating back at least to 2012, according to court records. He's been found guilty of drug possession, battery and several counts of burglary.

His arraignment on the current charges is Aug. 30.