Nikki Poteet: Ex Miss USA in court on alleged dog chain assault
Former Miss USA Brittany Nicole Poteet has appeared in a Sydney court charged with allegedly whipping her former fiance with a dog leash and with allegedly repeatedly punching him.
Ms Poteet, 34, is charged with two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm against a 44-year-old Sydney man to whom she was engaged early last year.
An American “southern belle” from a well connected family in Virginia, who came to live in Australia in 2014, Ms Poteet entered pleas of not guilty in June to the charges.
The glamorous former pageant winner, who is known as Nikki Poteet, appeared before Magistrate George Zdenkowski at Burwood Local Court on Tuesday.
The court heard the alleged offences occurred on separate occasions at the man’s Croydon home in inner-western Sydney.
After becoming engaged in late 2019, the couple had separated and then reconciled after numerous domestic arguments.
Police officers from the Burwood Local Area Command told the court they had been called to the Croydon home on April 17, 2020 in relation to a recent alleged assault and other alleged domestic violence against the man months earlier.
The court heard he alleged that on Easter Saturday, eight days earlier, Ms Poteet had punched him in the face several times.
It is then alleged she picked up dog leash and whipped him at least twice causing lacerations to his back.
The man gave evidence to the court, alleging that on February 28, 2020, Ms Poteet entered the Croydon house and a confrontation took place.
The court heard Ms Poteet allegedly spat in her former fiance’s face, and then punched him around six times in his face, spat again in his face and left.
The man told the court the alleged assault on his nose caused a deviation of the cartilage at the top of his nose.
In the witness box, the alleged victim denied a suggestion by Ms Poteet’s lawyer, Dr Anton Hughes, that he had provoked Ms Poteet by pulling a knife on her.
The man told the court that the suggestion was “ridiculous”.
Asked by Magistrate Zdenkowski to explain his response, the man said that prior to the alleged assault Ms Poteet had cleared all her belongings from the residence.
He said he owned the furniture and electronic equipment and that she owned her clothing and all the contents of the kitchen, including the knives.
At the time, he told Mr Zdenkowski, he had not yet replaced any of the kitchenware.
He said there were no pots, pans or any knives at all in the house and that he and his family members had been ordering from “UberEats”.
The hearing was adjourned and will resume in October.
In Australia, Ms Poteet has been performing as a female wrestler for Kingdom Wrestling Entertainment and the Australian Wrestling Federation.
Ms Poteet won the Miss Globe Australia 2019 beauty pageant and has a Bachelor of Biomedical Engineering and a Master of Nuclear Engineering.
Her grandfather was the Dean of Faculties of private men’s tertiary institution Hampden-Sydney College, one of America’s oldest universities.
Her grandmother is a legacy alumni of the Virginia Commonwealth University, and her uncle is a former Dean of Medicine at the same institution.
In 2011, Ms Poteet was crowned Miss Virginia USA, and went on to compete at the national Miss USA pageant.
However, Ms Poteet was forced to hand back her Miss United States crown after she posted a picture of herself wearing it on Facebook with the caption “Miss Alcoholic USA”.
In 2013, having lost her pageant crown, Miss Poteet registered her own corporation with the intention of establishing her own beauty pageant, however no pageants eventuated.
In March 2013, Richmond County, Virginia police arrested Ms Poteet following a dispute with her ex-boyfriend, James McElroy, NBC News reported.
Charged with misdemeanour assault and battery, Ms Poteet faced a Richmond court in May 2013.
The judge dismissed the charges after prosecutors told the court Mr McElroy was no longer able to recall the incident.
The same year, Mr McElroy was charged with possession and distribution of methamphetamines and in 2016 took his own life.
In Australia, Ms Poteet has worked briefly for a recruitment consultancy firm in the energy sector.
In 2016, she was a guest speaker for women’s business networking group, Business In Heels, promoting an anti-ageing skincare product called Nerium.
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