A Fairfield man has been charged with five felonies for allegedly beating and strangling his girlfriend at their Savage Street home over a period of three days in September.

Justin Lancaster, 36, pleaded not guilty last week to three counts of domestic violence assault, all class C felonies punishable by up to five years in prison on each count, and to two counts of aggravated assault, class B felonies punishable by up to 10 years in prison with a conviction on each charge.

His trial is set for February with a dispositional hearing with a judge in January.

The charges are alleged to have happened Sept. 16, 17 and 18. Lancaster was indicted by a Somerset County grand jury earlier this month on all five counts.

The woman was taken to the emergency room of a local hospital, where doctors told police the injuries she suffered were consistent with strangulation. The woman had bruises behind both ears from what appeared to have been someone placing both hands on her neck with fingers pressing hard behind the ears.

The woman told Fairfield police she began to lose consciousness on two occasions because of strangulation.

Caleigh Milton, an attorney with Leonard Sharon’s law firm in Auburn, represented Lancaster in court. Sharon and Milton represented former Nokomis music teacher Andrew Maderios, who was convicted of beating, kicking and strangling his girlfriend at a home they shared in Pittsfield from December 2013 to July 2014.

Maderios is serving three years in prison and will wear an electronic monitoring bracelet for two years upon his release.

Lancaster has a previous domestic violence assault conviction in Kennebec County in May 2014, according to court records.

The current charges against Lancaster accuse him of “extreme indifference to the value of human life” in the alleged domestic violence assaults.

After one of the alleged attacks, the victim herself was arrested on an outstanding warrant and taken to the Somerset County Jail in East Madison. Jail staff told authorities that the woman appeared to have serious bruises on the front of her neck, behind her ears and on her arms, legs and abdomen and had two black eyes.

She told police that during one of the assaults, Lancaster grabbed her hair and dragged her down the hall and slammed her into a dresser, according to the affidavit for Lancaster’s arrest. When asked why she stayed with him, the arresting officer, Patrick Mank, wrote “because she can’t get away,” the affidavit shows.

Lancaster told Fairfield police that the woman was the aggressor and had punched him in the nose and was beaten up by another woman, not him.

The woman said she had suffered domestic abuse at the hands of Lancaster for three years.

Somerset County Domestic Violence Investigator Mike Pike said he listened in on phone calls made later between Lancaster and the woman. When she asked him why he had punched himself, he reportedly told her, “Desperate times call for desperate measures” and “It’s like that movie ‘Fight Club.'”

Lancaster is out on bail. He has enrolled in the Somerset County Community Corrections Program and has been ordered to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet to make sure he does not go near his alleged victim.

Sharon, who took over the Lancaster case Nov. 12, said this week that the Maderios conviction has been appealed to the state law court.

Doug Harlow — 612-2367

dharlow@centralmaine.com

Twitter:@Doug_Harlow