CRANBERRY TWP — A township man was arrested Monday after he allegedly zapped his girlfriend with a stun gun-type device.

Mario T. Badamo, 21, is accused of shocking Sarah Gawron of Cranberry Township in the stomach with the electronic incapacitation gadget as the couple was traveling in a car on Haine School Road.

The woman had just had her wisdom teeth removed and Badamo was driving her home, Cranberry Township police said.

The suspected assault reportedly left her with a pair of dime-size welts on her abdomen.

District Judge Sue Haggerty arraigned Badamo on a felony charge of possessing a prohibited offensive weapon, a misdemeanor charge of simple assault and a summary charge of harassment.

He was placed in Butler County Prison on $5,000 bail following arraignment.

Police said the couple, while in Badamo's car, began arguing apparently after Gawron discovered photos of other women on the defendant's cell phone.

During the quarrel, documents said, the alleged victim purposely spilled ice cream on her boyfriend.

In turn, Badamo tossed the ice cream back onto his girlfriend. He also is accused of giving Gawron an open-hand slap on the face, causing her head to hit the passenger side window and door.

That's when the defendant grabbed the suspected stun gun.

Investigators described the device as being similar to a Taser but “shaped and mechanically similar to a police expandable baton.”

He shoved the gizmo into Gawron's stomach and activated it.

Once back home, Gawron told her mother, who called 911.

Under state law, the regulation of stun guns and other prohibited offensive weapons that are intended “for the infliction of serious bodily injury which serves no common lawful purpose,” falls under the Pennsylvania Uniform Firearms Act.

Included on the list are bombs, grenades, machine guns, certain sawed-off shotguns, blackjacks, sandbags, metal knuckles, daggers switchblades, and “any stun gun, stun baton, (T)aser or other electronic or electric weapon.”

But in 2002, the law was amended to allow for someone to “possess and use an electric or electronic incapacitation device in the exercise of reasonable force in defense of the person or the person's property.”