DA comments on change of charges for man originally sentenced to 19 years for beating woman

BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — A Brunswick County man sentenced to at least 19 years in prison in 2019 for choking a woman and beating her so severely she lost an eye recently received different charges.

Investigators say Jemar Bell hit a woman hard enough that she lost her right eye back in 2017. He also choked her from behind until she thought she was going to pass out. Investigators say the crimes took place between September 1st and October 14th of 2017.

District Attorney Jon David says a court recently determined Bell was improperly charges as a habitual offender in 2019. Bell was brought back to court in April of this year and resentenced under the charges the jury convicted him of at the trial in 2019.

This is called a motion for appropriate relief, and it is not all that unusual, according to David.

“Obviously, the sentencing guidelines are much less without the habitual offender status,” David said in a statement. “This is not a situation where someone was released early, rather it is a matter where a sentence was corrected following a motion. The defendant is in custody on the new charges and we are aggressively prosecuting the case.”

Bell’s was most recently charged with violating a domestic violence protection order.