BY DAN HILDEBRAN
A 24-year-old man has been sentenced to probation and jail time after pleading no contest to domestic battery and a lesser charge stemming from a September 2025 incident in which a woman and child were left on the side of a rural highway.
Tyrese Josiah Denegall, of Jasper, entered the plea Feb. 25 in Bradford County Circuit Court before Judge James M. Colaw. Under the plea agreement, Denegall was adjudicated guilty of domestic battery, a first-degree misdemeanor, and culpable negligence exposing another to injury, a second-degree misdemeanor. — a lesser included charge stemming from an original felony count of child neglect without great bodily harm.
Denegall was sentenced to 12 months of probation on the domestic battery count and 60 days in the Bradford County Jail on the negligence count, with credit for 50 days already served.
According to a Bradford County Sheriff’s Office warrant affidavit, a deputy responded the evening of Sept. 9, 2025, to the area of State Road 100 near the Bradford-Union County line after a report of a disturbance. A woman told the deputy she had been traveling westbound on state highway with Denegall and a child in her 2018 Toyota when Denegall struck her in the back of the head with a closed fist after a verbal confrontation. She pulled the vehicle over and got out. When another vehicle approached, and she refused Denegall’s demand to get back in the car and drive away, the defendant climbed into the driver’s seat and left, stranding the woman and child on the roadway approximately 5 miles from the nearest city or store.
As conditions of his probation, Denegall is required to complete the batterer’s intervention program within 30 days of release, successfully complete a parenting class, and have no hostile contact with the victim.
Assistant Public Defender Cheryl Gildner represented Denegall. Assistant State Attorney Scott Lapeer represented the state.
