QuickTake:

At the time of his arrest, Kuitlahuak Lopez Rojas led a mentoring program for Latino youth. The nonprofit Community Alliance of Lane County, which ran the program, no longer employs Lopez Rojas, an administrator said Wednesday.

The former director of a nonprofit youth program has been sentenced to two years of probation after pleading guilty to domestic violence.

Kuitlahuak Lopez Rojas, 39, pleaded guilty on Thursday, Sept. 11, to misdemeanor strangulation and fourth-degree assault, both Class A misdemeanors.

Lopez Rojas led the Citywide Unión de Activistas at the time of his arrest. The culture and mentoring program serving Latino youth has been run by the nonprofit Community Alliance of Lane County, also known as CALC.

Teresa Gutierrez, a co-director for the organization, said Wednesday CALC no longer employs Lopez Rojas. CALC hopes to continue the Citywide Unión de Activistas program and is searching for a new youth leader, she said.

In August, before the case had been resolved, Gutierrez had said Lopez Rojas would be taking leave while the organization did its “due diligence.”

Eugene police were called Aug. 11 about an assault days earlier in which Lopez Rojas reportedly tried to take a phone away from his spouse, with a physical struggle then taking place, a police spokesperson said.

In a court statement, the person assaulted by Lopez Rojas said she “lived in fear” for more than a decade.

“He convinced me that no one would believe me, that I was weak for wanting to call the police when he hurt me,” she wrote, in part. “He tried to silence me, all while presenting himself to the community as a safe ally for youth.”

The assault, in front of the couple’s child, “replays in my mind every day, and it’s a trauma my child now carries with her,” she wrote.

After his arrest, prosecutors charged Lopez Rojas with felony strangulation and felony fourth-degree assault, witnessed by a minor child.

Brook Reinhard, defense attorney for Lopez Rojas, said in an email the reduced charges came after a plea negotiation “based on his early accountability for his actions, lack of any criminal record, and the facts of the case.”

“Mr. Lopez Rojas regrets what took place. He had no intention of causing harm, but in the heat of the moment he lost his temper and made a very regrettable decision. He accepts responsibility for what occurred, and is already enrolled in domestic violence classes to make sure nothing like this happens in his life again,” Reinhard said.