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A man with a lengthy criminal past that a judge said includes a sexual offense, seven assaults and more than 20 misdemeanor convictions was sentenced to 12 years in prison Wednesday for breaking into a woman's house in Hoonah and trying to rape her.

According to statements made in Juneau Superior Court, Newton Lindoff got drunk and broke into a woman's home while she was sleeping last January. He left his shoes, jacket and backpack in the woman's house after she woke up, found him on top of her, and fought him off.

"If there's any place where a person ought to feel safe it's their own bed in the middle of the night," Judge Philip Pallenberg said.

Lindoff's sentence was part of an agreement with the state to receive the minimum amount of jail time as a repeat offender. Eight years of Lindoff's 20-year sentence was suspended, and he was given 10 years of probation. Pallenberg said Lindoff could have received a 99 year sentence given his criminal past.

Pallenberg said Lindoff's crime was an "eerie parallel" to one he committed nine years ago when he got drunk and broke into another woman's home in the middle of the night. While she was sleeping, Lindoff grabbed her crotch.  The judge added that Lindoff's sentence of six months in prison for that crime had been "pretty light" and the Alaska Legislature had since stiffened penalties for sex crimes.

The judge called Lindoff, 46, an obvious alcoholic who hurts people when he drinks and needs to be isolated from society so he can't commit another sex crime.

"With a record like this, an assaultive, a sexually assaultive conduct, at least under this sentence we know that won't happen for the next 12 years," Pallenberg said.

As part of Lindoff's sentence, he was ordered to take part in a sex offender treatment program in prison, if one was offered by the state Department of Corrections.

Currently, such programs aren't available in Alaska state prisons.

"It is my hope that in some point in the future the Department of Corrections will provide rehabilitative programs," Pallenberg said.

DOC spokesman Richard Schmitz said the department abandoned sex offender treatment programs for prisoners under former Gov. Frank Murkowski's administration because it viewed those programs as ineffective.

Instead, he said the department has focused on a "containment model," which emphasizes treatment and stringent supervision, including lie-detector tests, after sex offenders are released from prison.

Schmitz said it is the department's goal to reintroduce sex offender treatment programs in prisons that would complement the current "containment" strategy.

Prior to Wednesday's sentencing, Pallenberg denied a motion by Lindoff to reconsider his guilty plea on the grounds that his lawyer hadn't properly represented him and the judicial procedures hadn't been followed correctly.

Lindoff also asked that he receive an "impartial jury trial."

He later refused, initially, to have his thumb prints taken by the court, a standard procedure during sentencing.

Pallenberg told Lindoff that he would have state troopers physically force him to give a thumb print or the judge would find him in contempt of court and add more prison time to his sentence.

After Pallenberg said Lindoff could choose "the easy way or the hard way," Lindoff willingly gave the court a copy of his thumb prints.

• Contact reporter Alan Suderman at 523-2268 or e-mail alan.suderman@juneauempire.com.