Man found hiding in snow bank, arrested

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) -- A New Haven man found hiding in a snow bank was arrested for allegedly assaulting his wife on Valentine's Day.

Police responded to an apartment on Quinnipiac Ave. around 4 p.m. Thursday, after an 8-year-old called police to report that his mother was being assaulted.

Upon arrival, police interviewed the 35-year-old victim who said that after returning home from going to buy her a Valentine's Day present, her husband came home intoxicated and demanded that she give him her money.

Police said the woman refused and told him to leave, but he then pushed her down on the couch and choked her.

Eventually she told her husband she would give him whatever he wanted. At that time, he took her license, bank card, food stamp card, and her Oxycontin pills, and retreated to his car.

The woman told police she then confronted her husband outside demanding her things back, at which time he charged at her threatening to kill her.

The woman's son then called police.

Police said the man fled on foot before officers arrived, but returned around 2 a.m.

Officers returned and found 48-year-old Julian Derbocher hiding behind the home in a snow bank.

Derbocher was charged with risk of injury to a minor, second-degree strangulation, third-degree assault, second-degree unlawful restraint, second-degree threatening, second-degree breach of peace, and sixth-degree larceny.