MARION COUNTY — A 41-year-old Centralia man was sentenced Tuesday in Marion County Court to probation after he pleaded guilty in a case stemming from a New Year’s Day incident in which he was accused of forcing his way into a stranger’s apartment and then yanking a sleeping occupant from his bed and then choking him.

Braulio Romero was facing charges of home invasion, aggravated battery including strangling, criminal trespass to a residence, and battery. Romero pleaded guilty to the Class 3 felony charge of aggravated battery in exchange for the other charges being dismissed and was sentenced to two years probation.

He was arrested on the charges when officers responded around 4:35 a.m. January 1, to the Library Apartments on South Sycamore to a report of an intoxicated man trying to go into apartments and fight people.

When officers arrived, a woman came up to them and told them the problem was in apartment 309. Officers found two men inside the apartment, one was the resident and one was not.

The resident said he had no idea who the other man was. The female who met officers said she was inside the apartment when Romero burst into the apartment. She’d never met the man and ran out of the apartment to call 9-1-1.