CRESSON, CAMBRIAI COUNTY - A Blair County Defense Attorney has been charged with chaining his pregnant girlfriend to a couch.

Attorney Mark Zearfaus has had a long involvement with the criminal justice system both as a Blair County based Defense Attorney and a former Blair County Assistant Public Defender. Now because a reported domestic dispute spelled out in a criminal complaint, Zearfaus finds himself in role of criminal defendant.

The forty year old Attorney has been charged with simple assault, harassment and false imprisonment. According to police, Zearfaus got into an argument with his live-in 28 year old pregnant girlfriend on Friday morning striking her and leaving a bruise on her arm. The dispute took place at the apartment they shared on Penn Avenue in Sankertown, Cambria County. Police say Zearfaus left the apartment and came back with a 31-foot long chain and a couple of padlocks.

The Attorney then chained the woman's ankle to a sofa and left for the day. Zearfus says that while his girlfriend was chained to the sofa, the action was part of a mutual effort they were making to help the woman deal with her drug problem. While she was locked in the apartment for more than seven hours, Zearfaus says police only got involved because a neighbor saw what was happening and reported it to the authorities.

Because of the what he called the mutual consent aspect of the restraining, Zearfaus says he's confident the charges will be dropped before they ever go to trial. A preliminary hearing is set for November 14th.