AUSTINTOWN — A Lowellville man is in jail after police say he attacked a woman in her home and then returned to break down her door.

Joseph Turner, 39, is charged with one felony count of burglary and one misdemeanor count of simple assault. After an initial appearance Wednesday in Mahoning County Austintown Court, he remains in the Mahoning County Jail on a $17,500 cash or surety bond.

Records show Turner pleaded not guilty to the assault charge. Defendants do not enter pleas in initial appearances for felony charges. He is due back in court for both charges Jan. 22.

The Austintown police report states that Turner was arrested Tuesday after allegedly attacking the woman at whose Compass West apartment he sometimes stayed, smashing furniture, and then coming back hours later to take his belongings and breaking her door down in the process.

The report states the woman told police that sometime Tuesday afternoon, Turner came to the apartment and an argument started in the upstairs bedroom. She told police he picked up a nightstand and threw it against the wall, and it broke a mirror when it fell. She later showed police photos of the upended nightstand and broken mirror but the room was cleaned up when they arrived. The photos showed Turner cleaning up the broken mirror.

The report states that immediately after the nightstand was thrown, she reached for her phone, but Turner grabbed it first and went into the hallway. When she followed him out of the bedroom, she said he picked her up by the neck, pushed her into the hallway closet, then threw her on the bed.

The woman told police she was able to grab her phone and call her mother to have her call police. At that time, she said Turner left the apartment but she thought he may have come back and when police arrived, she said she was not sure if he was still upstairs. Police searched and did not find him there.

The report states that the woman tried to bar the door by nailing a metal plate to the door frame and placing a bar across it. About an hour after police left, she said, Turner came back and beat the door in, knocking the plate out of the frame. She saw him grab his belongings and leave in a gray car. She told police the car belonged to the sober house where Turner sometimes lives and that there were two other people in the car with him.

Police responded to the sober house and were there when he returned and they arrested him. The report states the two women in the car with him told police they saw Turner force the door open. Turner told police he had a key, but they did not find one and they confirmed with the apartment resident that Turner does not live there and he does not have a key.