A Marengo man on parole for battering a 7-month-old child in 2014, causing a brain bleed, pleaded guilty Wednesday to strangling a woman in February.

Dylan Abbott, 33, pleaded guilty to aggravated domestic battery with strangulation, a Class 2 felony, according to a judgment order signed by Judge Mark Gerhardt in McHenry County court. Abbott was sentenced to 5½ years in prison, the order shows.

At 11 p.m. Feb. 7, Marengo police officers said they responded to a call at the home Abbott shared with the victim. In front of the victim’s child, Abbott strangled her twice with both hands, causing her to go in and out of consciousness, according to a criminal complaint.

He was accused of slapping and punching the woman “multiple times, causing swelling and lacerations to her lower lip and bruising on the left side of her face.” He also caused injury to her right shoulder by shoving her out of a chair, the complaint said.

Then, police said, Abbott prevented the woman from calling 911 by taking away her phone and unplugging a smart speaker “after hearing the victim issue voice commands for the device to contact emergency services,” according to the complaint.

During Abbott’s first court appearance those charges, Judge Jeffrey Hirsch detained Abbott in county jail pretrial. In referring to a probable cause statement written by police and a pretrial service report, Hirsch wrote that Abbott committed “repeated acts of abuse, which escalated, including two attempts to strangle the victim, covering her mouth, and interfering with her reporting domestic violence. ... This all happened in the presence of a 6 year-old child.”

Responding officers “heard screaming coming from inside the residence,” and, “with no answer to their announcements, along with observations of neighbors,” officers forced their way into the home, authorities said, adding that, once inside the home, Abbott “confronted officers.”

In detaining Abbott, the judge noted his criminal history, including convictions for possessing a firearm, resisting a police officer and aggravated fleeing.

The judge also noted Abbott’s prior conviction for aggravated battery to a child younger than 13 causing permanent disability, for which Abbott was sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was still on mandatory supervised release in that case at the time of the February domestic assault, records show.

In 2014, when Abbott was 22 and living in Machesney Park, he was accused of battering a 7-month-old baby causing a brain bleed, according to a Shaw Local news story that cited reporting in the Rockford Register Star.

Court documents showed that, in that case, police were called to an apartment in Belvidere for a baby who had fallen. Police saw bruises on the infant’s face and ears while transporting them to a local hospital. A physician told police that blunt trauma caused bleeding on the right side of the child’s brain, the story said.

Abbott told police he was watching the child while the mother ran an errand, and that they fell while playing, the story said.

The Rockford Register reported that when police arrived to the home the baby was unresponsive. and Abbott gave different explanations to different people of what happened. He told the responding officers he had fallen when playing. During Abbott’s trial, a paramedic testified Abbott said the baby “may have choked on a toy.” The child’s mother testified that while they waited in the hospital where her son was being treated, Abbott told her he “had choked on a piece of candy and showed her a “wet” Smarties candy he had in his pocket, the story said.