Bobbitt Arrested on Domestic Violence Charges

LAS VEGAS – A lawyer for John Wayne Bobbitt (search) said Friday that Bobbitt was wrongly jailed on domestic violence charges after trying to break up a fight between his wife and her teenage son.

"Because it's John Bobbitt, they arrested him," lawyer Barry Levinson said of Bobbitt's arrest late Tuesday on two domestic violence charges. "It was a family squabble."

Las Vegas said Bobbitt, 37, punched his 14-year-old stepson and shoved his wife of 21/2 years during an argument at their Las Vegas home. Bobbitt was being held at the Clark County jail on $10,000 bail pending arraignment Monday.

Bobbitt was convicted in February 2003 in Las Vegas of battering his wife, Joanna Farrell. A week later, a judge in Fallon revoked Bobbitt's probation and sentenced him to prison for his role in the 1999 theft of more than $140,000 in clothing from a store in Fallon, 60 miles east of Reno.

Bobbitt was released from prison in May, Levinson said.

Bobbitt gained fame in 1993 when his first wife, Lorena, cut off his penis at their apartment in Manassas, Va. She was found innocent by reason of insanity, after arguing that Bobbitt abused her.

Bobbitt moved from Virginia to Nevada after surgery to reattach his penis, and has worked at a brothel, as a bartender and as a tow truck driver.