An Electric City man was sentenced to one and a half years of Drug Offender Sentencing Alternative (DOSA), or prison-based rehabilitation, for trying to strangle his girlfriend over the sale of puppies.

Frank Edward Brown, 57, made an agreement with prosecutors Jan. 26 and pleaded guilty to third-degree assault-bodily harm/substantial pain/domestic violence for the Dec. 22 incident. His original charge was second-degree assault-strangulation and/or suffocation, with a domestic violence enhancement.

Grand Coulee police responded at about 2:07 p.m. Dec. 22 for a call in which a woman told dispatch “her boyfriend was beating her up,” records stated. She hung up the phone, but police knew the couple from previous encounters, records stated.

Brown told officers he and his girlfriend were arguing over who would get money from selling their puppies. His girlfriend told him to leave, but the two “got in one another’s face,” which caused the argument to turn physical, records stated. Brown said his girlfriend punched him in the face.

Brown’s girlfriend told police he put his hands around her neck and she couldn’t breathe, pushed her to the ground and punched her. She had red marks around her neck, records stated.

Besides prison, Brown was ordered to pay $500 in fees and spend a year and a half in community custody.