ALPENA — A man accused of strangling and assaulting a woman in an Alpena home was moved toward trial Wednesday.

Blaine Crumley, of Alpena, was bound over to circuit court after a woman testified in the 88th District Court that Crumley choked and bit her during sex at his home as she tried to push him off, leaving bruises on her neck and torso.

The News does not identify victims of sexual assault.

According to the alleged victim, after the two of them drank together at a bar, she drove Crumley to his home, where they engaged in consensual sexual activity.

At some point during that time, she said, he wrapped his hands around her throat to the point that she was unable to breathe or speak.

He also bit her painfully in multiple places, she said, and grabbed her chest hard enough to leave fingerprint bruises.

A form of sexual penetration left her with injuries that will require surgery, she said.

The alleged victim said on the stand that she told Crumley he was hurting her and to stop. She said she bit him defensively and grabbed his wrist and tried to push him off of her but couldn’t.

“It was like a Chinese finger trap,” she said. “The only way to get out was to stop struggling.”

Defense attorney Peter Samouris, of Lansing, pressed the woman on the amount of alcohol she had consumed and challenged whether she had specifically told the defendant she didn’t want him to choke and bite her.

The attorney objected to answers beyond a simple “yes” or “no” by the alleged victim. Judge Thomas LaCross said the witness’s answers should be heard, a decision Samouris called “mollycoddling,” which means to treat someone in an overprotective way.

He referenced the alleged victim’s report to a police officer, during which the woman said she wasn’t sure whether she had been assaulted.

According to the officer, who took the stand during the exam, the woman told her, “I didn’t think anything was wrong until it was.”

Samouris accused the officer of pushing the idea of rape during the interview.

“That’s how false allegations are made,” Samouris said. “Maybe this was a case of rough sex gone wrong.”

“There’s a difference between someone grabbing your neck playfully and your trachea violently,” the woman said on the stand. “And his was the latter.”

Assistant Prosecutor Cynthia Muszynski told the judge consent is based on what a victim agrees to, not on what the defendant may have believed at the time.

Although the alleged victim did testify that she bit and pushed the defendant away, a victim does not have to show she resisted or did anything to defend herself, Muszynski said.

“She knew things went on that night that she did not want to have happen,” Muszynski said.

LaCross, considering the testimony presented, said the evolution toward the sexual encounter was all clearly consensual.

He called the woman a vulnerable person wading into a very dangerous situation, at first willingly.

“Then you interject violence,” he continued. “Nowhere was there indication that she consented to the violence.”

Crumley was bound over on counts of strangulation, engaging in sexual penetration during a felony, and using coercion to commit a sexual assault. He is expected to waive arraignment and appear in the 26th Circuit Court in upcoming weeks.

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.