Dennis W. Heatherman

A Saxonburg man facing trial on charges he strangled his girlfriend earlier this year is now accused of contacting her from behind bars to get her not to testify against him.

Butler County detectives last week charged 41-year-old Dennis W. Heatherman Jr. with felony counts of intimidation of witnesses or victims.

He is being held in Butler County Prison on $30,000 bail.

State police on Feb. 24 arrested Heatherman after he allegedly assaulted his girlfriend during a domestic dispute at his home on the 200 block of Carol Drive.

The alleged victim told police that the defendant grabbed her by the throat and choked her, according to court documents, to the point she was “unable to breathe for a brief period of time.”

She also recounted that the defendant slapped her head and pulled her hair “multiple times,” during the altercation. She suffered minor injuries.

Heatherman was arraigned on a felony count of strangulation and a summary charge of harassment. He was placed in the county jail on $25,000 bail and ordered to have no contact with the victim.

On March 7, he waived his preliminary hearing on charges stemming from the domestic dispute. In turn, his bail was reduced to $25,000 unsecured, and he was released from jail.

But on June 28, prison records showed, he was back behind bars for contempt of a domestic relations order.

Authorities said they subsequently learned of numerous jailhouse telephone calls made by Heatherman to the victim in the alleged strangulation.

The calls were made, documents said, “to sway the victim's testimony at trial.”

In all, between Feb. 25 and July 17, the defendant made 126 calls to the woman, despite the no contact order.

During one call July 10, documents said, he tells the victim to say, “I won't testify, it didn't happen.”

He also allegedly instructed her to call the district attorney and tell him “you're not going to testify.”

“It is obvious that throughout the 126 phone calls,” county Detective David Aldridge said in his affidavit, “that the defendant controls the victim, not only through anger and intimidation, but also by telling her what to do.”

Heatherman's preliminary hearing in the latest criminal charges is set for July 30 before District Judge William Fullerton.

But he also was due in court today before Butler County President Judge Thomas Doerr on a separate motion for contempt of court that prosecutors filed July 13 in connection with the calls from the prison to the same victim.

The defendant's “extensive phone call sessions” with the woman using the prison phone system is “in direct defiance of a court order,” Ben Simon, a county assistant district attorney, said in the motion.

Simon called Heatherman's actions a “flagrant disrespect for the court system.” and a “direct effort to interfere with the prosecution of this matter and to sway the victim from testifying or cooperating with the prosecution of this case.”