A man accused of stabbing his roommate and friend during an altercation at their Butler apartment was ordered Monday to stand trial.

District Judge Pete Shaffer ruled that testimony presented at Steven D. Pintell’s preliminary hearing suggested that the defendant committed the crime.

He is charged with felony aggravated assault and reckless endangerment. He remains in the Butler County Prison on $100,000 bail.

Pintell allegedly stabbed 31-year-old Daniel Gerard in the early morning of April 15 at the apartment building in the 400 block of West New Castle Street.

Gerard suffered life-threatening injuries in the suspected attack that left him hospitalized in Pittsburgh with a collapsed lung from a stab wound in the upper left chest, according to Butler police and testimony at Monday’s hearing.

Moments before the stabbing, about 3 a.m., Gerard testified, he and his girlfriend, Chelcel Daye, had been in an argument at the apartment where they lived. Pintell, a friend of the couple’s, had also been staying there for a while.

Daye recounted that the argument with Gerard was “heated” and led to her decision to pack up her belongings and leave. Pintell was helping her move out.

“We were all best of friends,” Daye testified in describing the relationship among the three of them.

But that night, she believed Pintell became angry with Gerard for arguing with her. Gerard, too, was apparently angry with the defendant.

“I told him to leave,” Gerard said.

“He told Steve to ‘get the (expletive) out of my house,’” Daye said. From another room, she watched from an obstructed view the two men confront one another in the kitchen.

Gerard said at some point Pintell grabbed a knife. According to court documents, the 6-inch knife was in the dish rack.

“What? Are you really gonna stab me?” Daye recalled her boyfriend tell the defendant.

She said that she could see her boyfriend from her vantage point but that she could not see Pintell. She saw Gerard lung forward

“I tried to grab the knife (from the suspect),” Gerard told Pintell’s attorney, public defender Kimberly Hudak “As soon as I did, he stabbed me.”

But it took him a moment to realize he had been cut with the knife.

“I said, “Did you really just stab me?’ Gerard testified. “He looked at me and said, ‘You deserved it.’”

Pintell fled the apartment. Daye went into the kitchen and saw her injured boyfriend.

“Blood was coming from his mouth,” she said. “It looked like he was puking blood.”

Documents said when police got there officers saw Gerard seated in a chair and covered in “a tremendous amount of blood.” His pants, chest and arms were also blood-soaked.

He was taken to Butler Memorial Hospital before a medical helicopter flew him to the trauma center at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. He was treated for the stab wound to his chest and subsequently released.

Police upon arriving at the crime scene also found Pintell seated in the courtyard at the apartment building. He admitted stabbing Gerard, documents said.