Newlywed Charged With Battery Hours After Tying the Knot

FORT LAUDERDALE  (CBS4) - Happily ever…beating?

For a Lighthouse Point newlywed couple, the honeymoon phase seemed to have only lasted a few hours after tying the knot.

After her marriage on Saturday, Bernadette Besario Catan-Keeler, 30, was arrested early the next morning and charged with domestic violence battery.  According to a police affidavit she bit and attacked her husband, Mike Keeler, following a violent argument.

Police say the couple spent the night at the W Hotel in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday to celebrate their nuptials, then headed over to a Fort Lauderdale club. While at the club, Catan-Keeler allegedly began dancing with another man.  Keeler grew upset and left the club, returning to the hotel room, said the affidavit.

Drunk and upset, according to the affidavit, Catan-Keeler returned to the hotel room to confront her husband, pushing him and demanding to know why he left the club. To avoid further confrontation, Keeler placed himself face down on the bed, while in this position his wife bit him on his left shoulder blade. Keller then left the hotel room and drove to the couple's Lighthouse Point home.

Police say Catan-Keeler then took a taxi to their home where she became even more physical. She allegedly ripped off his shirt,  bit him again and threw water on him.

Responding to a 911 call from the couple's home, two officers arrived to the on the scene on Sunday around 8:30 a.m.  According to the affidavit, the officers heard a woman screaming for help and entered the home through an unlocked front door, finding Keeler with a phone to his ear pinning his wife to the ground.

When questioned, Catan-Keeler told officers that the bite mark on her husband's left shoulder was from "fooling around" two days prior; even though officers noted the bite mark was apparently fresh and bleeding through the shirt she had ripped off of him. She reportedly told officers she bit Keller on his right arm because he pushed her into a wall.

According to the affidavit there were no visible wounds to Catan-Keeler aside from red marks on her arm caused by her husband pinning her down.

Keeler told authorities that he did not want this wife to go to jail and attended her hearing on Monday before Broward County Judge John "Jay" Hurley. Her bond was set to $4,500 and he ordered her to stay away from alcohol and her husband.