Manassas Man Caught After Escaping Arrest In Stafford: Police

STAFFORD, VA — A Manassas man is behind bars, accused of choking a Stafford County woman, stealing a vehicle and escaping from sheriff's deputies who tried to arrest him, according to the Stafford sheriff's office. Robert Allen Hughes Jr., 27, is being held without bond in the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Stafford on numerous charges, including grand larceny, abduction, strangulation, assault and battery, obstruction and resisting arrest, the sheriff's office said in a statement.

The incidents began at about 2:04 a.m. Friday, Sept. 6, when a deputy responded to the report of an assault at a home on Sydney Lane, just west of Interstate 95.

A person identified by the sheriff's office only as a "female subject" told the deputy that the assault suspect, identified as Hughes, had just left the residence.

She told the deputy that while they were watching a movie, he grabbed her by the throat and tried to choke her, according to the sheriff's office. "She eventually broke free of his grasp and he left," the statement added.

Other deputies arrived and set up a perimeter in the neighborhood to catch Hughes. Two deputies eventually found him hiding behind an unidentified vehicle.

"They attempted to detain him, but he resisted and took off running," jumping over a fence and fleeing the area, the sheriff's office said.

A few hours later, Hughes was seen stealing a vehicle at a Wawa convenience store at 105 Garrisonville Road in North Stafford, the sheriff's office said. It did not identify the year, make, model or color of the vehicle.

The theft occurred at about 9 a.m. Friday. A Wawa customer told a sheriff's deputy that he had left his vehicle parked at the store's gas pumps and went inside. When he returned, the vehicle was gone.

Surveillance camera footage showed a man identified as Hughes entering the vehicle and driving it away, the sheriff's office said.

Later on Friday, Hughes was taken into custody by the Prince William County police. The vehicle was recovered in Prince William; the Stafford sheriff's office did not give further details on how or where Hughes was arrested.