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A 20-year-old Crescent City man will stand trial on seven domestic violence-related charges, including sodomy, Del Norte County Superior Court Judge Robert Cochran ruled during a preliminary hearing Tuesday.

Cochran’s ruling comes after the alleged victim, Anthony Jacob Armstrong’s girlfriend, testified that during the night of Nov. 2, Armstrong allegedly forced her to have anal sex, though she told him she didn’t want to. The alleged victim, who was referred to as Jane Doe during the hearing, said Armstrong allegedly punched her in the face and threatened to kill her and her daughters.

Doe said she grabbed a knife that was on the bed of their Harding Avenue apartment and stabbed Armstrong as he started coming toward “in a fighting stance.”

“I closed my eyes and I stabbed him,” Doe told the court Tuesday. “I stabbed him under the shoulder blade on the left side I think.”

Armstrong was booked into the Del Norte County Jail on Nov. 7, according to the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Online Information Page. His initial charges include assault with a deadly weapon with great bodily injury; kidnapping; false imprisonment; inflicting corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant; sodomy; felony violation of parole; making criminal threats with intent to terrorize; and preventing or dissuading a witness or victim from testifying, according to the Sheriff’s Online Information Page.

On the evening of Nov. 2, Jane Doe told Deputy District Attorney Zachary Curtis that she and Armstrong had been drinking when he asked for oral sex. She told Curtis that though she didn’t want to, she agreed to Armstrong’s request so she “wouldn’t make him mad.” Doe said Armstrong was already mad and threatening to leave and she agreed to oral sex so he wouldn’t do anything abusive such as hitting and choking her.

At one point, she said, she stopped and went to the bathroom to throw up. Doe said she heard her daughter crying and picked her up to sooth her when Armstrong allegedly said he wanted anal sex.

“He had his hand on my back and he just did it,” Doe said.

When Curtis asked her if the sex was painful, Doe said “it made me jump up and scream and start crying.”

Doe testified that when she jumped up, Armstrong told her he was going to leave and allegedly said he was going to kill her and her daughters. Doe said Armstrong punched her in the face strong enough to force her into the closet doors about 2 to 3 feet from him.

“I don’t remember what happened next,” she said. “He was sitting on the bed and he had his knife next to him.”

After stabbing him, Doe said she called 911 and held a shirt to the wound on his back in an attempt to stop the bleeding. When law enforcement arrived, Doe said they arrested her, placed her in handcuffs and sat her in the back of a patrol vehicle.

During Doe’s testimony, Curtis told Cochran that two of the officers who investigated the case were concerned about making Doe’s address known.

Doe said Armstrong allegedly told her that if she did anything that sent him back to prison “he would send someone who would rape and kill me and my children.”

Two days after Armstrong’s stabbing, Doe said the defendant and his mother, Mara Armstrong, allegedly approached her and urged her to tell the court that she has post-traumatic stress disorder and to plead insanity.

“(They said) that I don’t remember what happened, I don’t remember what I was doing when I was under the influence,” Doe told the court on Tuesday. “I was afraid because I had already made a statement.”

On cross examination, Armstrong’s defense attorney, Dennis Daniel, asked Doe if her two children are also Armstrong’s children and if she had oral sex with Armstrong on Nov. 2 voluntarily.

Doe answered yes to both questions, but added that sometimes she doesn’t want sex. She told Daniel that she had never been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, but she does have problems with her behavior and memory when she has been drinking.

“I remember you saying you may have blacked out,” Daniel told Doe. “And you just testified that you were the one who picked up the knife… you didn’t have to take it away from him.”

Doe repeated that Armstrong allegedly threatened to kill her and her children. She said Armstrong also allegedly pinched her daughter’s legs.

“I thought he strangled her, but I didn’t actually witness that,” Doe said, admitting that she had been drunk. “The parts I don’t remember I didn’t speak about.”

During her testimony, Doe told the deputy district attorney that Armstrong had previously hit her in the context of asking for sex, so she agreed to sex on Nov. 2 because she didn’t want to make him mad.

Doe told Curtis that about two years ago while living in his mother’s Klamath home, Armstrong killed her dog in front of her because he wanted sex and she didn’t.

In early 2018, Doe said she tried to get away from Armstrong by running down the street.

“I was pregnant and he came after me,” she told the court. “I was scared of what he would do to me. He grabbed my arm; I didn’t try to get away.”

Doe told the court that Armstrong threw her down onto the ramp of his mother’s trailer and punched her in the face.

“I can’t remember what he said,” Doe told the court. “He said something about not leaving while I was pregnant with his child.”

Doe also said though she doesn’t remember everything because she had been drinking, in August 2018 Armstrong allegedly hit her about the face to the point that she was unrecognizable.

“I couldn’t speak,” she said, adding that she and the defendant were living with his mother in Klamath in 2018. “I couldn’t see clearly. (My face) was three times its size.”

Doe testified that it took about two to three weeks for the swelling in her face to subside.

Another witness for the prosecution, Crescent City Police Officer Ethan Miller, said he responded to the 300 block of Harding Avenue on Nov. 2 for a report of a stabbing. When he arrived at the apartment, Miller said he entered the master bedroom and saw Armstrong lying on the floor on his right side in pain. A Del Norte County Sheriff’s deputy was applying pressure to a puncture wound approximately 2 inches in length in the middle of Armstrong’s back on the left side, Miller told the court Tuesday.

Miller said he spoke with Doe, who he described as scared, emotional and very concerned for Armstrong. Doe asked if Armstrong was OK multiple times, Miller testified, and asked about her children repeatedly.

Doe, Miller told the court, appeared intoxicated. He said her speech was slurred, he could smell alcohol on her breath, her eyes were glassy and she was slightly unsteady on her feet. Miller said he also saw evidence of injuries to Doe’s face.

“I saw her nose was red and slightly swollen as well as her right cheek was also red and swollen,” Miller testified. “I also saw two horizontal streaks of blood on her right cheek. I used a sterile swab and wiped the blood off her and ended up noticing two small marks in her nostril that could have been cuts.”

Miller said Armstrong told him that his girlfriend stabbed him. After being transported to Sutter Coast Hospital, Miller said, Armstrong told him he was worried about being sent back to prison. Miller told the court that Armstrong’s statement changed a lot.

“He stated his girlfriend stabbed him,” Miller said. “At one point he said it was random, for no reason at all. Then he said they argued about the amount of people he slept with. I couldn’t get a clear statement.”

Miller told the court that Armstrong also admitted to drinking and said he could smell alcohol on his breath and his speech was slightly slurred. Miller said Armstrong told him that Doe had to have been scared to stab him.

“He didn’t appear angry,” Miller said of Armstrong. “He made it known that he felt (Doe) stabbed him by accident due to alcohol and PTSD issues. He said he didn’t want anything done.”

Miller told the court Tuesday that when he interviewed Doe on Nov. 4, she told him she didn’t remember everything that happened. Miller said Doe told him she had blacked out when Armstrong allegedly had anal sex with her, but she woke up when he entered her from behind.

Miller said Doe told him that Armstrong had never been violent with her children.

During his argument before Cochran, Curtis said he wanted to withdraw the first charge against Armstrong — assault with a deadly weapon with great bodily injury.

Cochran said he found there was insufficient evidence to hold the defendant to count for that charge. However, Cochran said he believed there was sufficient evidence to try the defendant on suspicion of sodomy by force and inflicting injury to a spouse.

Cochran said Doe’s testimony that Armstrong and his mother allegedly urged her to plead insanity by saying she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder meets the criteria of dissuading a witness by suggesting they falsify testimony.

Doe’s testimony of Armstrong’s dragging her back to his home in 2018 when she tried to runaway also meets the criteria for the defendant allegedly holding her against her will, Cochran said.

Cochran set Armstrong’s arraignment for Jan. 7.

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