SAXONBURG — A man showed up drunk at his preliminary hearing stemming from a case of harassment against his ex-girlfriend last year, authorities said.

William L. Harnest Jr., 36, who has no known address, reeked of alcohol when he appeared Wednesday morning at the office of District Judge Sue Haggerty in Saxonburg.

Prosecutor Russ Karl, a Butler County assistant district attorney, first encountered the suspect outside the courtroom. He alerted Haggerty, court officials said.

The judge, at the bench, confronted Harnest, asking him if he had anything to drink that day. He denied consuming any alcohol but Haggerty wasn’t buying it.

She asked Trooper Craig Johnson to give the defendant a test with the officer’s portable breath test device.

The test showed Harnest’s blood-alcohol level was .101 percent, authorities said. The state’s legal limit for driving is 0.08 percent.

Authorities said they believe the suspect’s friend drove him to his appointed hearing, which Haggerty postponed due to his intoxicated condition.

State police in that case accused him of calling an ex-girlfriend in Clinton Township about 250 times “often at inconvenient hours” over a week’s period in July 2013, despite her pleas for him to leave her alone.

He remained a fugitive until May 13, when police arrested him on charges of misdemeanor harassment. He was arraigned and released Monday from Butler County Prison on $2,000 bail.

Harnest was not charged in connection with his unusual court appearance Wednesday. However, Haggerty increased his bail to $10,000. The defendant, who did not have an attorney, was later returned to the county jail.

“My concern was that he needed help to sober up and to apply for a public defender,” Haggerty said of her decision to hike bail. “He also was a fugitive for almost a year,”