NBC News published a story today about a man named Christopher Pelkey who has been charged with multiple felonies for abusing three different women in Maine but somehow he has only served about 40 days in jail. This is a story that just doesn’t make a lot of sense.

In 2015, Navy veteran Ashley Alaimo met Pelkey and fell in love.

“We fell in love so quickly and there was no fear in my heart about being with him,” she wrote.

But within a few months, Pelkey had become violent, Alaimo wrote. She wrote that during one alleged confrontation, she tried to leave their apartment but that he grabbed her and dragged her down the hallway.

A week later the couple had an argument and Pelkey walked out. Alaimo bolted the door and wouldn’t let him in when he returned. He (allegedly) broke a kitchen window to get back inside.

Alaimo told police he knocked her to the ground and pressed on her throat “hard enough that she was not able to breathe at all,” according to the report.

Alaimo wrote in the statement that Pelkey grabbed a piece of glass from the window and threatened to kill her.

Alaimo screamed and Pelkey fled again. By the time he returned police were there and he denied breaking the window and choking and threatening Alaimo. Pelkey was arrested and faced two felony charges for aggravated assault and domestic violence. And here’s where the story takes its first turn. The felonies disappeared and Pelkey wound up serving just 30 days on a conviction for two misdemeanors.

Two years later, Pelkey pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors and was sentenced to 10 months in jail and one year of probation, according to a judgment filed in superior court. All but 30 days of the jail sentence was suspended.

The same month Pelkey was sentenced for attacking Ashley Alaimo, he started a new relationship with Persis Smith. There were engaged a few months later. He never told her about the charges stemming from his previous relationship. But the new relationship also became violent.

Smith was on bed rest from a recent surgery, the judgment says, when Pelkey choked her until she urinated herself.

She fell from the bed, the judge wrote, breaking her pelvic bone and damaging several ligaments — an event that required her to go on disability.

Two days later, Pelkey was arrested after a confrontation with Smith’s father over the alleged abuse, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by NBC News. Smith was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where a forensic exam found she suffered “extensive damage” and showed clear signs of strangulation, the affidavit says.

This time Pelkey was charged with four felonies including aggravated assault and domestic violence. Pelkey admitted to choking Smith during a police interview. Four months later he was allowed to enter an Alford Plea on a single misdemeanor charge. That means the suspect is not admitting guilt but agrees there is enough evidence that the prosecutor could secure a conviction. He was sentenced to six months in jail but all but 10 days were suspended. He also was put on 2 years probation.

And once again, he started a new relationship, this time with Andrea Stevens. He told her about his past convictions but claimed the two women were out to get him. But within a year, Pelkey had turned violent against Stevens too. She claimed he assaulted her 4-year-old son, choked her until she couldn’t breath and tore out a patch of her hair. She was found running down the street in tears carrying her son. Pelkey denied everything and claimed Stevens had injured herself to frame him.

Pelkey is once again facing four felony charges. It remains to be seen if the prosecutors in Maine can put together a case on the third try or if Pelkey will once again wind up facing nothing but misdemeanors.