Man convicted in alleged sword-wielding incident

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A Cottage Grove man has been convicted of making terroristic threats in connection with a May 2008 incident in which he allegedly wielded a samurai sword and threatened to cut off a woman’s head.

Alexius Justin McMullin, 35, received a 21-month stayed prison sentence — meaning he will serve 180 days in jail and serve no time in prison if he meets conditions laid out by the court — and five years probation.

McMullin had faced five felony charges — third-degree criminal sexual conduct, second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, domestic assault, making terroristic threats, false imprisonment and a firearm violation — in connection with incident last spring at his mother’s Cottage Grove home.

According to the Washington County District Court complaint, McMullin argued with a female friend at his mother’s house on May 1, 2008, eventually grabbing one of two samurai swords he kept at the home and holding it to the woman’s neck. The woman told police McMullin severed her laptop power cord with the sword and then began strangling her.

Another confrontation ensued outside, where McMullin allegedly pulled off the door handle on the woman’s car, throwing it into the yard. He told police the “flimsy” handle broke when the woman locked the door as he tried to retrieve cigarettes from the car.

McMullin began to calm down and the woman remained at the residence overnight, going to sleep in McMullin’s bed. She told police McMullin woke her and told her he wanted to have intercourse; she refused twice and McMullin blocked the bedroom door.

Police allege McMullin — who said consensual intercourse occurred shortly before the woman left his mother’s residence on May 2 — then forced the woman to have intercourse. He threatened to kill her and her family if she contacted police, allegedly telling her, “I will cut your head off.”

In an interview with Cottage Grove Police, the woman told an officer she submitted to McMullin for fear she would be harmed. She said she awoke in the afternoon of May 2, drove to her Minneapolis home and went to Hennepin County Medical Center for a sexual assault exam.

Police observed scratches on the woman’s neck and a bruise on her bicep. At McMullin’s mother’s home police found two samurai swords, used condoms and the severed laptop power cord.

Police also found a bolt-action rifle in McMullin’s closet. McMullin was convicted of robbery with a deadly weapon in Panama City, Florida court in 1993; it is illegal for McMullin to possess a firearm.

Tags: cottage grove, crime, courts, police