Buffy the Vampire Slayer Actor Nicholas Brendon Charged with Domestic Violence
Nicholas Brendon has been charged with domestic violence.
The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office has filed documents charging Brendon, 48, with domestic violence for his October 2017 arrest, PEOPLE confirms.
Brendon, who played Xander Harris in the drama series, is facing one count of felony corporal injury to a spouse, according to the documents. If convicted, the charge is punishable by up to four years in state prison.
A rep for the actor did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
TMZ first reported the news.
The reported charge comes more than a year after the actor’s arrest.
Brendon was arrested on Oct. 11, 2017 and charged with violating a protective order and felony inflicting injury on a spouse or cohabitant, jail records show. He was released the next day after being held on $50,000 bail, KMIR-TV reported.
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Police said Brendon allegedly pulled his girlfriend’s hair and yanked her arm at around 9 p.m. at the Saguaro hotel in Palm Springs, The Desert Sun reports.
“He was with his girlfriend and they got into an argument,” Palm Springs Police Sgt. William Hutchinson told KESQ-TV. “During the argument at the bar, he pulled her arm and then violently pulled her by her hair.”
The girlfriend allegedly had active protective orders against Brendon in Florida and New York, police told the newspaper. He was allowed to be around his girlfriend, but could not harass, injure, assault or threaten her, authorities said.
Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment from PEOPLE at the time, and Brendon’s rep was not available for comment.
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This isn’t Brendon’s first run-in with the law.
In 2015, the Criminal Minds actor pleaded guilty to criminal mischief in New York after he allegedly grabbed his girlfriend by the throat, stole her car keys and smashed her cell phone. Brendon was arrested four times that year and entered rehab that June for substance abuse, depression and alcoholism. In October 2015, he checked in to another treatment center for depression.
During an interview with Dr. Phil released in December 2015, Brendon revealed that he “had failed attempts at suicide” and had been in a dark place over the past three years — he also opened up about being molested by a music teacher who went to jail in 1981, when he was about 10 years old.
“I think about it every day of my life and I wonder how it affected me. Did I stop growing emotionally?” he added. “When you’re molested for a couple years and you’re blamed for it by the people who are supposed to be your protectors, there’s going to be a lot of confusion and a lot of sadness.”
At the end of the interview, the actor checked into a dual diagnosis treatment center, HeadWaters at Origins. “Maybe I’m just done,” he said of entering rehab. “Maybe I’m ready to be happy now.”
