WARREN — A man with addresses in Girard and Austintown was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison after pleading guilty in May to felony strangulation against a woman who now says he did not commit the crime.

Christopher R. Hunter, 45, of Trumbull Avenue in Girard and Robert Frost Drive in Austintown, was sentenced by Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge Cynthia Westcott Rice for the Nov. 1, 2024, offense, which the woman initially said happened on Trumbull Avenue in Girard. Hunter’s indictment states that Hunter was previously convicted of two felony offenses of violence — aggravated assault in a 2016 case and felony sexual battery in a 2000 case, both in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

A Girard police report states that Girard police officers were called to the Trumbull Avenue address for a domestic violence incident. When officers arrived, the victim said Hunter, her live-in boyfriend, struck her in the lip with a closed fist. Her lip was split and bloody, police stated.

The woman said Hunter also clasped his hands around her neck in an effort to strangle her, the report states. She said she got away from him and told Hunter to leave. He left the residence on foot. The police report states that the woman had “red line markings” on her neck. She declined medical treatment.

Trumbull County assistant prosecutor Gabe Wildman asked Rice to give Hunter a prison term on the high end of the prison range available, saying Hunter has at least five previous domestic violence convictions and is a convicted sex offender.

He was indicted in Mahoning County on several similar charges last year, but “similar to this case, victims came in and said ‘He never did any of this. You got the wrong guy,'” Wildman said. “That case was summarily dismissed.”

Wildman added, “I think the court can see a pattern there.”

Wildman said the victim in the Girard case is also going to “say nothing happened.” He said the victim can “say anything she wants,” but the “body cam shows otherwise and that is why the defendant pleaded guilty.”

Wildman added,”I think he’s a bad guy. He hurts women any time he feels like it.”

The victim in the Girard case did recant the story she told police when she spoke to the judge Wednesday, saying she came home “severely intoxicated,” and the incident began when she “initiated sex and Chris rejected me.” She said the injury to her lip was accidental. She said she did not want Hunter to “go to prison for something he did not do.” She said, “I did this, not him.”

Rice did not comment on the reason for her decision to send Hunter to prison. Hunter got credit for one day in jail.