BEND — A Prairie City man avoided further jail time for a domestic violence case from 2020 but got a tongue-lashing from the judge.

Deschutes County Circuit Judge Randy Miller told convicted abuser Nicholas James Alexander, 43, that he was lucky to get a plea deal recommending only time served. He also took issue with several of the defendant’s statements in court, including that the devil had a hand in the case and that “everything happens for a reason.”

“It happened for a reason — yes, it did. It happened because he chose to terrorize her,” Miller said at the sentencing Wednesday, Jan. 12. “What the state described was nothing short of terrorism, and the devil didn’t do it.”

At Alexander’s sentencing, prosecutor Brittany Haver of the Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office outlined the background of Alexander’s latest case.

On Dec. 13, 2020, the victim had been trying to stay away from Alexander. He located her in a Walgreen’s parking lot in Redmond and used his vehicle to block hers. He yelled at her and broke one of her car mirrors. She was forced to use her car to push his out of the way and flee, Haver said.

Later, she was outside the Redmond Walmart when Alexander approached her. She ran to the store entrance, but he grabbed her, tossed her phone on the ground and started dragging her to his vehicle. Multiple witnesses called 911, and employees intervened, but Alexander escaped before Redmond police arrived.

Officers agreed to keep watch on the woman’s hotel room that evening as agencies worked to find Alexander.

Around 7:30 that night, Alexander parked near the hotel and “slipped past” law enforcement officers on foot, Haver said. He entered the woman’s room, but she wasn’t there. He spotted her outside the hotel and chased her into her van, then back to her room. She called 911 as Alexander smashed through her hotel room window, causing $258 in damage, and chased her out of the room.

Alexander was eventually tracked down the next day in an attic in Culver and arrested. He was charged in December 2020 with 14 counts, including the Class A felony of first-degree unlawful sexual penetration.

Alexander came to court Wednesday having arranged a plea deal involving 180 days in jail, time he’d already served, and three years’ probation. For the incidents at Walgreen’s and Walmart, he pleaded guilty to one count each of coercion. For the hotel attack, he pleaded guilty to menacing and endangering someone protected by a restraining order. All other charges were dropped.

“I lost everything when I met Nick,” Alexander’s victim told the court. “The ripple effects of his abuse are way too much to get into in one letter. The problem with Nick is, he follows through on about half the threats he makes. And I never knew, from one day to the next, which threats he was going to follow through on.”

Over a rambling nine-minute statement to the court, Alexander blamed his problems on drugs and the devil and said “everything happens for a reason.” He said his victim had tried repeatedly to contact him, despite the restraining order she has against him.

“I think Mr. Alexander has made about 500 excuses,” the judge said after Alexander was finished. “Really, I’m not persuaded by anything he’s said. I hope I’m wrong. I hope a scintilla of what he’s saying is accurate. I hope that he does make improvement, for everybody’s sake. Not just his, but all the victims he creates with his behavior.”

In the end the judge went along with the plea deal with the caveat that if Alexander violates probation, he’ll serve a minimum of four years in prison.