URBANA, Ill. (WCIA) — An Urbana man made his first appearance in court on Tuesday to face charges that accuse him of stabbing his wife during a domestic dispute Sunday night.

Rafael Magdaleno-Mendoza appeared in the courtroom of Judge Brett Olmstead via Zoom for arraignment on four charges:

• Attempted murder
• Aggravated criminal sexual assault with a threat toward life
• Aggravated criminal sexual assault with a weapon
• Aggravated domestic battery

The first three charges are all Class X felonies. One of the sexual assault charges has a sentencing range of 10 to 30 years in prison; the other two Class X counts are punishable by six to 30 years in prison. Domestic battery is a Class 2 felony, punishable by three to seven years in prison.

Assistant State’s Attorney Eileen Keeley said in court that the cause of the domestic incident that led to the stabbing was that Magadaleno-Mendoza suspected his wife was seeing a female coworker. The wife told deputies that during the incident, Magadaleno-Mendoza grabbed a knife from the kitchen and threatened to kill her so she couldn’t be with anyone else. He also threatened to kill the coworker and himself.

Keeley said that Magadaleno-Mendoza eventually attacked his wife, first slashing her hand and wrist, and then stabbing her above her right breast. Keeley added that after stabbing his wife, Magdaleno-Mendoza performed a sex act on her that she did not consent to.

The first person to become aware that something was wrong was their son, who called his mother as the incident was happening. Keeley said Magadaleno-Mendoza picked up the phone, but his wife screamed in the background to call 911. Her son did that and the Champaign County Sheriff’s Office responded.

When deputies arrived, Magadaleno-Mendoza claimed his wife was in her bedroom and was sick, but deputies saw blood in the bathroom. When they entered the wife’s bedroom, the deputies found her covered in blood on the floor, where she had crawled to after being attacked. Her son, who had gotten there before deputies did, was holding a towel against her chest wound.

The chest wound was serious enough that the wife required surgery, but she survived and is in stable condition.

When deputies interviewed Magadaleno-Mendoza, Keeley said he claimed he was not home when the attack happened. He even took deputies along the route he supposedly took while he was out, but Keeley said the route was lined with automated license plate readers; none of them recorded Magadaleno-Mendoza’s car at the time the attack occurred.

Keeley added that after attacking his wife, Magadaleno-Mendoza changed his clothes before deputies arrived, to hide his responsibility.

When asked if he wanted to have a pretrial hearing, Magadaleno-Mendoza said he did, and Judge Olmstead scheduled that hearing for May 28. As a result, Magadaleno-Mendoza did not enter a plea of guilty or not guilty.

Keeley filed a petition to deny Magadaleno-Mendoza pretrial release, but David Appleman, his appointed attorney, asked to continue that subject to the following day. Judge Olmstead ordered that Magadaleno-Mendoza be temporarily detained until his detention hearing on Wednesday.