News

Charges and countercharges fly in domestic violence case

Dr. Dean Snyder faces five charges of assault on a female.

By Lightning Reports, Published: July 17, 2023

A hospital anesthesiologist faces five counts of assault on a female after his wife reported to a magistrate and sheriff’s deputies that he had pushed her, thrown her to the floor, sexually assaulted her, taken her phone to delete evidence she had kept of her injuries and threatened to either kill himself or have her killed, according to court records.

Dean Carlton Snyder, 40, who works as an anesthesiologist at UNC Health Pardee but is not a Pardee employee, was released on bond Monday after he was jailed Friday afternoon on the misdemeanor charges.

According to arrest records and hand-written complaints in the court file made by Tanah Marie Snyder, Dr. Snyder on at least five occasions physically attacked his wife.

The physician, meanwhile, has charged in court documents seeking a restraining order that his wife had bitten and scratched him, “threatened to file false DV (domestic violence) charges against me, threatened to call my job to get me fired or my licensing boards to have my license revoked,” accessed his phone calls, text and emails to track him and show up “unexpectedly at private locations.”

Court records show that Tanah Snyder, 36, alleged to investigators or magistrates this month that on Feb. 26 her husband struck and strangled her; the next day, pinched and bruised her nipples; and on three different occasions in Tanah SnyderMarch and May strangled or sexually assaulted her, resulting in bruises to her legs and thighs and vaginal area. In a May 26 attack, she said, Snyder threw her against bar stools in their kitchen, shoved her and threw her down “because he found me filling out 50B paperwork,” referring to the N.C. General Statute on domestic violence. “He threw the Alexa across the kitchen because she responded to my scream for help,” then “threatened to blow his brains out” if she “told anyone what occurred” or submitted “50B paperwork.”
Most recently, she alleged in one of her hand-written complaints that her husband on July 7 wrestled her to the ground “so that he could take my phone and delete video evidence, succeeded and drove away with phone and deleted evidence.”
She said in the final paragraph of a page-long narrative said that she went to a magistrate last Wednesday to show “bruising in various stages of healing on her entire body,” including her arms, stomach, torso and other areas. She said in the complaint filed last week that “due to home situation” she was living at the time at a hotel in Flat Rock.

Both parties seek restraining orders

Court records show a flurry of charges and countercharges the pair made against one another over the past two weeks. According to their respective requests for restraining orders:

• Snyder in a July 7 complaint seeking a domestic violence protective order depicted his wife as the creator of false accusations against him, alleging that she “threw herself on the ground and faked injuries” and “hit me, scratched me and bit me repeatedly” while he was trying to retrieve his laptop from her. He wrote in the complaint that Tanah had “coached” their 6-year-old son “that I was ‘bad’ and would hurt her. … During all this time, she was verbally and emotionally abusive.” After the restraining order was issued on July 11, Tanah was charged later that day with violating the order “by residing in the plaintiff’s residence.”
• Tanah Snyder filed a complaint seeking a restraining order against her husband on July 13, alleging that he had hit their older son in the head the day before and that he “threatens to hurt me if I do not lie to DSS and the police to cover for welfare checks from family and neighbors.” Four days later, she amended the complaint to ask the court to order the removal of “firearms, weapons and ammunition” from their home in Crooked Creek.
• On Tuesday of this week Tanah filed a request for a restraining order against Dr. Snyder’s mother, Ann Patz, a resident of Florida. Tanah Snyder alleged that Patz had taken the couple’s two sons and fled with them, claiming Dean Snyder had given her “paternal grandparent’s custody.” … “She initially refused to tell the police where the kids were located,” Tanah wrote. “On Saturday (July 15) the kids were located and returned to me.” A district court judge declined to immediately grant a restraining order against Patz and instead set a hearing on that request for Friday, July 21.

Tanah Snyder and her mother, who was at the couple’s Crooked Creek home caring for the couple’s two boys on Monday, said that Dr. Snyder was arrested at Pardee on Friday afternoon. Jail records show he was booked at 5:34 p.m.
“I can confirm that he does have privileges at Pardee but is not an employee,” Erica Allison, who handles communications for the hospital, said Monday afternoon. She said Snyder is employed by Medstream Anesthesiology Solutions. The Asheville-based health-care provider says in its Linked-In profile that it serves more than 50 anesthesia practice sites across the Southeast and beyond.

Amy Taylor, Medstream’s human resources administrator, said her company is investigating the situation. Dr. Snyder, she said, is an independent contractor and not an employee of Medstream.

“I reported it to the (Medstream) chief administrative officer — that’s who I report to,” Taylor said. “He’s going to take it to the hospital administrator.”

Snyder graduated from the University of Indiana with honors in 2016 and worked at a hospital in Muncie in that state before joining Medstream. Reached on his cell phone Monday, Snyder said he would have “no response” to the charges.

Snyder’s attorney, Mary Ann Hollocker, on Tuesday pointed to what she described as problems with the timeline of accusations Tanah Snyder has made against her husband.

“None of this matches up,” Hollocker said. “She violated the protective order and was arrested the same day. Look at the restraining order.”