Citizen’s arrest led to police arrest and now conviction in Southlake roadside assault

A 30-year-old man was found guilty this week of assaulting his girlfriend on the side of the road in Southlake in 2014, despite the woman denying the abuse during her testimony at trial.

MacMichael Nwaiwu was sentenced Tuesday to two years’ probation after a jury convicted him of assault causing bodily injury to a family member, a Class A misdemeanor, according to Tarrant County court records.

His case drew attention when a passerby witnessed the incident and placed Nwaiwu under citizen’s arrest at gunpoint.

The passerby, Aaron Kraig, was driving with his wife Dec. 26, 2014, when they saw Nwaiwu standing outside a car on the side of Farm Road 1709 near the Southlake Town Square shopping center. Nwaiwu was throwing clothes from the car into the street, and then hit and punched his girlfriend, Kraig testified.

Kraig — a combat veteran and self-defense instructor with a concealed-handgun license — pulled over and held Nwaiwu at gunpoint, ordering him to lie on the ground until police arrived.

Nwaiwu’s girlfriend, Christabel Ebuzoeme, who was pregnant with his child, was shown on police video “screaming in pain” and crying, said Tarrant County Assistant District Attorney Art Clayton, who prosecuted the case with Paul Nguyen.

She had a cut, swollen lips, and pain in her neck and shoulders. She told police that she and Nwaiwu were arguing over a soda and that he poured the drink on her before hitting her about 15 times, Clayton said.

But as the case progressed, the woman did not stay in touch with prosecutors. At the trial, she took the witness stand on behalf of Nwaiwu.

“She testified that they were struggling over a bottle of Sprite,” said Nwaiwu’s attorney, Eric Labovitz. “And that there was no physical altercation, just a struggle over a soda.

“I believe everything she told us on the stand.”

Clayton, who heads the district attorney’s intimate partner violence unit, believed the woman was pressured into changing her story, a common occurrence in domestic-violence cases, he said.

The conviction, even as a misdemeanor, “was huge,” Clayton said.

“It’s part of a culture change,” Clayton said. “We need to hold him accountable for what he did. If we have a victim who is so stressed she’s willing to change her story, we need to be ready and willing to prosecute him.”

Nwaiwu, whose address is listed as Houston in court records, is appealing the conviction, Labovitz said.

This story was originally published March 1, 2017 at 7:46 PM with the headline "Citizen’s arrest led to police arrest and now conviction in Southlake roadside assault."