Douglas Spink

A Butler man who was involved in an armed standoff with police late last year reached a tentative plea deal with the state on Wednesday at the “eleventh hour,” as Assistant District Attorney Ben Simon described it.

Douglas B. Spink, 47, of Butler was charged with aggravated assault, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct in connection with the standoff in an alley between Fulton and Pearl streets. Police Tasered him five times and hit him with several bean bag rounds before he was arrested.

“We want him on the hook so he won’t do this again,” Simon said in court to Dennis McCurdy, who was acting as Spink’s stand-in-laywer, a term used when someone chooses to represent themselves but has a lawyer on standby to consult with proper legal proceedings.

In what became an impromptu plea deal negotiation, the two parties discussed what it would take for an agreement to be reached and for a trial to be avoided.

Simon said that in order for the state to accept any plea deal Spink would have to submit to at least three years of some combination of jail time and parole.

Spink said that he very much wanted to be over with the case and serve whatever sentence is agreed upon. To this end, Simon agreed to meet with Spink next week at Butler County Prison, where Spink is being held on $35,000 bail.

At the time of Spink’s arrest he was wanted on a mental health warrant obtained by the crisis intervention center. When police found him in his vehicle on Nov. 25, 2017, Spink allegedly held a machete and knife to his dog’s throat and bit the hand of a trooper.

The most serious charge Spink faces is aggravated assault, a felony. During the meeting with Simon, Spink said that he wanted to have the felony charge against him reduced.

“You don’t steer the ship,” Simon said. “If he’s steering his ship it goes to the iceberg. It’s the Titanic.”