PARIS - A 27-year-old Sumner man pleaded no contest Thursday to several charges related to a violent domestic incident in September.

Jason Mark Merriam, of 25 Main St. in Sumner, was sentenced to three years of a seven-year prison sentence and three years of probation by Justice Roland Cole in Oxford County Superior Court. Merriam pleaded no contest to aggravated assault, domestic assault, criminal threatening, and two counts of terrorizing. A charge of kidnapping was dismissed.

Merriam will be required to attend substance abuse counseling, complete a batterer's intervention program, refrain from using drugs or alcohol, and have no contact with the victim.

The charges stem from an incident on Sept. 27 when Merriam's 33-year-old girlfriend accused him of forcing her into his car to take her back to his apartment. The woman said Merriam slammed her head against the vehicle and steering wheel.

Merriam was also charged with repeatedly threatening to kill the woman and choking her several times.

"This day has caused so much damage to me as a person," the woman wrote in a letter to the court. "He made it a point to tell me he was going to kill me either slow or fast, while I sat there begging for my life."

Defense attorney Walter Hanstein said Merriam did not agree with the woman's testimony, but believed he could be convicted of the crimes.

"There's evidence to suggest it may not be correct," Hanstein said. "He understands he could have significant problems and a jury could convict him."

The sentence will be served concurrently with a three-year sentence imposed for a probation revocation. Merriam was convicted in 2003 of stealing a box truck from Quality Egg Farms in Turner on Feb. 2, 2002, and driving it to Derby, Vt., before he was apprehended.

Merriam was sentenced to six years in prison, all suspended, for the theft, with three years of probation.