Luke Scott was sentenced Wednesday to 17 1/2 years in prison for hitting a 21-year-old woman in the face with a wine bottle and forcing her into a dog kennel during an overnight assault at his St. Paul home.
A jury found him guilty in April of first- and second-degree assault, making terroristic threats and false imprisonment. He was acquitted of two counts of kidnapping. Scott, 30, insisted on Wednesday that he was only trying to prevent the victim from driving drunk.
"The main thing about it was not terrorizing anybody but making sure she didn't drive drunk," Scott told Ramsey County District Judge Margaret Marrinan.
Marrinan pointed to the fact that Scott had attempted to bribe the victim so she wouldn't testify, saying it told her "what kind of person you are."
Prosecutor Janice Barker had asked Marrinan to sentence Scott to 20 years in prison. She said that Scott terrorized the victim "to create serious psychological harm and serious physical harm."
The victim, Caitlin Hodges, testified that Scott also whipped her with a riding crop and threatened her with a knife and BB gun on Sept. 26 and 27 after she told him she didn't want to see him anymore. Scott locked the doors so Hodges couldn't leave the house and at one point forced her into the dog kennel.
Hodges eventually used a bottle to break a window pane on the front door and escape.
LORA PABST
