AUBURN — A local man was sentenced Friday to a suspended five-year prison term for attacking a friend who had been flirting with his girlfriend.

Nathan Evans, 21, of 59 Northern Avenue Heights appeared in Androscoggin County Superior Court after pleading no contest to a charge of aggravated assault in November.

A judge suspended Evans’ five-year sentence and ordered that he serve three years on probation. He had faced up to a year in jail under terms agreed to by prosecutors.

He was ordered to pay more than $4,000 in restitution and up to nearly $10,000 to the Maine Victims Compensation Fund. 

He had remained free on cash bail.

In November, a judge had entered a guilty plea to the aggravated assault charge, which was punishable by up to 10 years in prison. His plea came one day before a jury trial was set to start on a charge of elevated aggravated assault, three charges of aggravated assault and one charge of burglary. The other charges were dismissed.

Police said in court records that on the night of Nov. 15, 2013, Cheryl Seaborne, 26, and her husband, Jermaine, 40, were in their Main Street apartment in Lewiston when two men known to the Seabornes came in and started assaulting Jermaine Seaborne.

Cheryl Seaborne told police that Evans used a “shiny blue baseball bat” to beat her husband on his head and upper body. Evans’ accomplice used his fists to punch Jermaine Seaborne. Evans disputed that he used a bat during the assault.

The two men continued to beat Seaborne after he had fallen to the floor and yelled, “Stop!” repeatedly, Cheryl Seaborne told police. Evans and his accomplice fled the scene in Evans’ blue Crown Victoria sedan, she told police.

Evans had reportedly been upset that Jermaine Seaborne had been calling and texting Evans’ girlfriend, Ashley McCarthy.

When police arrived at the Seabornes’ home, they found Jermaine bleeding from the face and head and lying in a “large amount of blood” on the kitchen floor, according to an affidavit by Lewiston police officer Jeffrey Burkhardt.

Jermaine Seaborne suffered a fractured skull and jaw, lost four teeth, and received several stitches to his head and hand. He has ongoing substantial migraine headaches and has needed extensive dental work, prosecutors said.

Evans had no prior criminal record and had been enrolled in the criminal justice program at Central Maine Community College. He had come to Lewiston from Alabama, where he had been a football star, to help his sister. He joined Volunteers of America. He lives with his fiancee and their toddler and supports them by working at a local pizza franchise.

His attorney, Henry Griffin, wrote in a sentencing memorandum that his client had gone to the Seabornes’ apartment to retrieve his girlfriend’s cellphone. He and Jermaine Seaborne had fought. Evans, a trained boxer, had delivered several punches to Seaborne’s head and body after Seaborne threw a chair at him, cutting his arm.

Terms of Evans’ probation include no contact with Jermaine and Cheryl Seaborne and to stay away from their Main Street apartment in Lewiston.

cwilliams@sunjournal.com