Sometimes, love stories play out in the courtroom — like today, when a man asked a judge to let him marry the woman whose car he’s accused of ramming while she and their five-week-old baby were inside.
Matthew Formsma, 33, and Jennifer Gragg, 22, want to get married. They have one daughter together and she’s pregnant with their second child. But there’s a hitch in the plans: he’s in jail awaiting trial next month, charged with battering her and endangering their child. Formsma, 33, has been in jail on $100,000 bond since his arrest in October.
According to testimony in previous hearings: Gragg, 23, went to the couple’s house in the 600 block of South Rutan one evening to find Formsma passed out naked on the couch and another woman in their bed. After an argument, Formsma had service shut off to Gragg’s cell phone. Gragg took the other woman’s cell phone and left. Formsa later asked Gragg to return it.
Court documents state that when Gragg returned, she parked in the driveway, left her infant daughter in the car with a friend, and went inside the house. During another argument, Formsma pushed her to the floor. She returned to her 2007 Chevy Cobalt, parked behind Formsa’s 199 Chrysler Concorde. Draxa Wylie, the friend, testified she locked herself, the baby and Gragg inside the car, as Formsma tried to break the window. He then got in his Concorde and backed into them, she said, sending the Cobalt about 20 feet into the street. The baby was strapped into a car seat in the back seat.
Gragg has since testified that it’s all a big misunderstanding. Now, she wants to marry Formsma. Prosecutor Christine Ladner told Judge Joe Kisner that despite an order for Formsma to not have contact with Gragg, he’d sent her letters and she’d used an assumed name to visit him in jail. She was in court today for the motion.
Judge Kisner denied the motion, telling the couple they’d have to wait to get married.