SLIPPERY ROCK — Two charges were added and another was dismissed at a Wednesday, June 3, preliminary hearing for a Slippery Rock man accused of assaulting and raping a woman between May 23 and 24 after an argument.

Brandon Ross Brenner, 34, had charges of felony sexual assault and misdemeanor indecent assault added by assistant district attorney David Beichner. He was charged May 25 by state police with felony rape and one misdemeanor count each of false imprisonment and simple assault.

District Judge Joseph Nash dismissed the misdemeanor false imprisonment charge Wednesday.

The woman testified the alleged incident occurred while the two were living in the Campus Edge apartment complex on Cornish Drive.

The woman testified the two had been drinking alcohol during the weekend and began arguing during the night of May 23 about a photo Brenner found on her phone. She said Brenner took her phone, grabbed her forearms and shoved her into a wall.

The woman showed the court bruises on her forearm below her left elbow where Brenner allegedly grabbed her. The woman testified Brenner told her the only way to make up for the photo he saw was to have sex with him.

The woman said Brenner also took her keys and didn’t allow her to drive, but defense attorney Owen Seman, of The Law Offices of Seman & Saba, argued it was because the two had been drinking, and said the woman did not attempt to leave the apartment on foot.

The two then went to a bedroom, where Brenner told her to remove her clothes and forced her to have sex, the woman said. She testified the two had still been arguing at the time, and she told Brenner no multiple times.

The woman said after the incident, she got her phone and went to sit in a bathroom while Brenner knocked on the door and attempted to get her to come out. While in the bathroom, the woman said she told a friend about the incident, and she didn’t know at the time that the friend reported it to police.

Trooper Anthony Vaccaro responded to the scene a couple of hours after the incident. Other police had already been on scene and arrested Brenner on May 24, he said. Vaccaro said other police told him they found the woman crying in the bathroom.

Police photographed the damage to the wall that Brenner allegedly had shoved her into, and Vaccaro later photographed bruises on the woman. The bedroom where the alleged rape occurred was not photographed, Vaccaro said.

Vaccaro said the woman told him she was scared. Seman argued Vaccaro’s testimony of the woman being scared was hearsay because she didn’t testify to that, but Nash said hearsay is allowed to be considered for the purposes of a preliminary hearing.

He also argued the woman had sent Brenner a photo of herself the day of the incident, and the two had consensual sex days before the incident.

Brenner’s formal arraignment is scheduled for 1 p.m. July 21 in Butler County Common Pleas Courtroom 2.