Man pleads guilty to strangulation, suffocation charge

A Rice Lake man accused of choking a woman with whom he had been in a relationship after she revealed alleged incidents that occurred between January 2021 and November 2023 to his probation agent has pleaded guilty to one of the charges filed against him.

Luke D. Bernstein, 28, was charged on March 15 in Barron County Circuit Court with three felony counts of strangulation and suffocation — domestic abuse, and one misdemeanor of misuse of GPS device.

Bernstein pleaded guilty on Tuesday in Barron County Circuit Court to a single count of strangulation and suffocation while the other three charges were dismissed but read into the record.

Bernstein could be fined up to $10,000 or imprisoned for up to six years at his sentencing hearing on Nov. 5.