Brad Kelly, star of the reality show Bering Sea Gold, will spend time in prison for a domestic violence case in Alaska, TMZ reported. In February, the gold miner was arrested for assaulting the mother of one of his children in Alaska. According to police, hospital staff informed them that the woman had suffered life-threatening head injuries.
TMZ obtained a police report in which the woman said that after an argument with Kelly, she went to bed and woke up to find Kelly standing over her in a pool of her blood. In the report, the outlet said no specifics about why her head injury was so severe.
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Kelly told officers that the woman fell and struck her head on a table, but they did not discover evidence to support this. He was arrested and has been in police custody since February 11, with no projected release date. The officers charged Kelly with second-degree assault and physical violence, which means he recklessly attempted to cause serious injury to a woman.
Kelly’s lawyer, Jon-Marc Petersen, told TMZ that Kelly entered into a plea deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty to felony assault while the rest of the charges were dropped. Kelly was sentenced to four years in jail following his hearing, three of which were suspended. Petersen said he might see release after just eight months of his sentence, which means he cannot get into trouble behind bars. Once released, Kelly will be on probation for five years.
Kelly and his two sons, Kris and Andy, have been divers on Bering Sea Gold since Season 2 of the Discovery Channel show in 2012. The family’s on-screen dynamic is often volatile, with Kelly sharing a strained relationship with Brad that has occasionally turned physical.
One plotline had Kelly stealing more than $13,000 worth of gold from his sons to help pay for his newborn baby in 2015. After taking the gold, he later explained that he felt justified after aiding his kids in pursuing a mining career and considered it “the price of working” for him. Kelly’s ex-wife Wendy, Kris and Andy’s mother, is rarely seen on the show, as their relationship hasn’t been great since they split up. She currently lives in Hawaii.
