STEUBENVILLE — A woman assaulted by a 22-year-old Bloomingdale man nearly a year ago let him know Monday he’d caused her “an unbearable among of trauma” and wasn’t even sorry he’d done it.

Nathaniel Lee King, 62 Sherry Lane, was sentenced by Jefferson County Common Pleas Judge Michelle Miller to nine months of residential community control and five years of supervised probation after pleading guilty to aggravated assault, a felony. Under the terms of his plea agreement, King will not be prosecuted on a second charge, sexual battery.

He had been indicted earlier this year for allegedly forcing the victim, his one-time girlfriend, to have sex against her will in October.

“The victim was happy with the result and thankful to close this chapter,” said Assistant Prosecutor Jeff Bruzzese, who said it “was a difficult case, as any similar case of sexual violence between a boyfriend and girlfriend is.”

Bruzzese said he was glad “the victim was given the closure she needed and that she was happy with the result,” pointing out she and family members were in court for her attacker’s sentencing and listened as he read her victim impact statement into the court record.

In her statement the woman said she’d chosen to forgive King “for (her) own peace of mind.”

“I don’t and probably will never understand why you did it,” she’d written. “I think that what hurts the most is that I trusted you and you betrayed me, yet I feel bad for you. I felt like I was the reason for all of this but in reality, it was your own actions.”

“You didn’t ruin my life, though some days things remind me of you and I break down. I don’t have a single good memory left of you, they are all just covered up by what you did. Throughout this whole process I have come so far — I’ve accomplished things that you were supposed to be there for, but it doesn’t make me emotional any more. I just feel angry.”

She also wrote that she has “no respect for anyone that took your side over the past nine months.”

“The people you surround yourself with should not condone this type of behavior — they are part of the reason why you think it’s fine to be this way,” she wrote. “I know you will never stop pretending that you aren’t the bad guy. You can make me the villain in your story and keep telling yourself that I’m ‘crazy’ — according to you, so was the girl before me and, coincidentally enough, the one before that, too.

“The truth is you aren’t happy with yourself, and you take that out on people who try to love you,” her statement concluded. “I truly hope you get better. I now close this chapter of my life with a feeling of relief.”