Man Sentenced For Assaulting Ex Outside Of General Mills
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A South St. Paul man will go to prison after surveillance video recorded him assaulting his ex-girlfriend, and then trying to kidnap her.
Police say 28-year-old Mark Galatowitsch drove to General Mills in Chanhassen, where his ex-girlfriend worked, on Feb. 11. He waited for her to park and then attacked her.
"This is really scary. This is a really dangerous individual with a criminal history," Carver County Attorney Mark Metz said.
Surveillance video shows Galatowitsch arriving at General Mills around 10 p.m. He sits and waits until he sees his ex-girlfriend arriving for work. The two had dated for several months, but she had recently ended their relationship.
As soon as the woman parks, Galatowitsch pulls up behind her. She agrees to give him 10 minutes to talk. At one point he has to move his car so an employee can leave. And when he returns, the confrontation quickly turns violent.
"You can see there was a significant struggle. Right here he picked her up and dragged her back," Metz said.
Metz says Galatowitsch was dragging the woman by the hair and trying to push her into his car. When she resisted, he punched her several times -- leaving an egg-sized bump on the back of her head.
"You can see in this video that people are going to work and they aren't sure what's going on," Metz said. "And fortunately a security guard was notified."
Galatowitsch hopped in his car and took off when security arrived. Police found him hiding in a closet in his home two days later. He had a box-cutter knife nearby and another one in his car.
"Galatowitsch has a significant criminal history and that's something we weigh and we take into consideration with this," Metz said.
Metz says Galatowitsch was convicted of a strikingly-similar crime two years ago. He assaulted another woman at her workplace in Burnsville, and then forced her into his car.
He was also convicted in 2011 of criminal sexual misconduct for having sexual relations with a 14-year-old when he was 21.
"That's a desperate man that's going to do whatever he could, to go to her work in public at 10 or 10:20 at night," Metz said. "If she would have gotten into that car, we don't know what would have happened."
Galatowitsch pleaded guilty to one count of attempted kidnapping and one count of felony domestic assault. He was sentenced to 45 months, or just less than 4 years, in prison.