Collin County man sentenced to life in prison for assaulting pregnant girlfriend

A Celina man has been sentenced to life in prison for assaulting his pregnant girlfriend.

Apolonio Rodriguez, 33, was sentenced Friday, a day after a Collin County jury convicted him of aggravated assault.

Prosecutors presented evidence during his sentencing that showed he had a history of abusing women going back to 2007.

“Rodriguez spent 15 years abusing multiple women,” Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis said in a written statement. “The verdict delivers vindication for the victims and perfect punishment for the predator.”

Rodriguez assaulted his girlfriend, who was seven months pregnant, with a golf club, extension cord, knife, mug and his hands and feet while at their home in Celina in February 2020, the Collin County district attorney’s office said.

The assault left the woman with extensive bruising, a cut to her head and a shattered elbow. Rodriguez then forced the woman to go with him to a family member’s house, the attorney’s office said.

The woman’s friends and family requested a welfare check on her when she didn’t show up for work. Rodriguez and the woman were found five days later in the attic of his relative’s home, the district attorney’s office said.

Rodriguez was wanted at that time for an aggravated assault charge out of Montague County, about 100 miles northwest of Dallas, involving another girlfriend, officials said.

He had been convicted in Denton County of misdemeanor assault in 2007, and two other women testified during his sentencing phase that Rodriguez abused them — one from 2008 to 2012 and the other from 2015 to 2017.

The women did not seek charges against Rodriguez because they were afraid of him, the district attorney’s office said.

Rodriguez must serve 30 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.