Man sentenced for choking assault

Nov. 7, 2006

By MARY AMES

Frontiersman

PALMER -A Butte man arrested in March as he drove away from the house where he choked his wife with a sash from her bathrobe was sentenced Monday.

Steven J. Humphrey, 39, received a three-year sentence, with one year suspended, as part of a plea agreement with the state.

Humphrey originally was charged with second-degree assault for punching the woman and then using the bathrobe's drawstring to restrict &#8220blood flow and circulation,” according to a report from Alaska State Troopers. Troopers also charged Humphrey for driving with a canceled, suspended or revoked license after they stopped his 1989 Chevrolet van at about 8 a.m. March 21 on Plumley Road.

As part of his plea agreement, the driving charge was dismissed, and Humphrey pleaded to one count of third-degree assault.

Bruce Brown, Humphrey's public defender, argued against some of the 10 conditions of Humphrey's probation, such as no contact with his victim, or from ever seeing their 4-year-old son, who witnessed the assault. And Humphrey didn't want mandatory substance-abuse assessment, Brown said.

Humphrey wanted contact with the victim, Brown said, and he had expected her to show up in court, but she wasn't there.

Humphrey could have contact with his son, but only with the permission of his parole or probation officer, said Rachel Gernat, assistant district attorney. Citing a probation officer's report in which Humphrey had said alcohol and drugs go hand in hand, his problems with them go back to 1985, Gernat said.

Humphrey, who has been in custody since his arrest, was to be commended for entering the batterers' program, she said.

Humphrey told the court he was sorry, and he'd &#8220never been sorrier for anything in my life.” He didn't object to no alcohol, he said, but he wanted to avoid the expense of a court-ordered program. The nine-month program he was in has an addiction component, he said, and monitoring would be part of his sentence.

Superior Court Judge Beverly Cutler said she would go along with the plea agreement, even though the probation office questioned it. Cutler said it had been a severe assault that also traumatized a child.

&#8220Your assault fits classically in ways that are quite

frightening,” she said. &#8220If you had gone on, someone could have been dead.”

Humphrey had been controlling and dangerous, she said, and the state was 100-percent right that a strong component of the solution was helping him to stay sober.

Noting that, because of his criminal history, a two-year sentence was mandatory, Judge Cutler added three years probation to the sentence, and ordered Humphrey to get a substance-abuse evaluation within 30 days of his release.

Cutler also ordered Humphrey to have no contact with his victim or her immediate family without written permission of his parole or probation officer, even to send his son a birthday card.

&#8220I can't emphasize enough completing that program is the single most important thing you can do,” she said.

Contact Mary Ames at

352-2284 or mary.ames@

frontiersman.com.