Harrisburg gym owner sentenced for attacking ex, breaking her boyfriend’s face (2024)

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify what Dauphin County work release is, and that the defendant was accused, but not found guilty, of attempted rape.

A Harrisburg man accused of trying to rape his ex-girlfriend and beating her new boyfriend after finding them in bed has accepted a plea deal through veterans’ court, according to online court documents.

Austin Qualls, 29, will spend five years on probation. The first 11.5 months of that sentence will be spent in Dauphin County’s work release program, where he will be permitted to report to a job during the day while spending his nights in custody.

Qualls pleaded guilty to aggravated assault against the woman’s boyfriend, and to strangulation of the woman. An additional 13 felonies and three misdemeanors were dropped in the case as part of a plea deal.

The dropped charges included attempted homicide, robbery, theft, indecent assault, attempted rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse for the Aug. 27, 2023 beating that occurred on the 1100 block of Lonberry Drive in Lower Paxton Township.

The hearing during which Qualls was given this unusually lenient sentence was held without prior notice to the public, because online court dockets had not been updated with the hearing date.

The Clerk of Court’s Office, which is responsible for maintaining those online public records, has been plagued since the beginning of the year with staff vacancies and backlogs that sometimes prevent documents from being docketed in a timely manner.

The Clerk of Courts office also incorrectly entered Qualls’ sentence, indicating he would spend 11.5 months in prison and then 24 years total on probation. A probation sentence of that length would have been highly unusual.

“We will see to it the record gets corrected,” Bridget Whitley, the Dauphin County Clerk of Courts, said.

Sarah Phillips, the prosecutor assigned to the case, said the woman asked for leniency in the sentence.

In addition to prison and probation, Qualls is responsible for around $5,000 in court costs and $6,100 in restitution.

Qualls operated a gym called Rogue Sol and obtained a business license in Pa. on Dec. 31, 2020.

Police accused Qualls of sneaking into his ex-girlfriend’s home, attempting to rape her, and breaking every bone in her new boyfriend’s face. The woman testified at an August 2023 hearing that she woke up to Qualls straddling her.

“I see you’re talking to (him),” Qualls told the woman, according to her testimony.

After the attack, Qualls went downstairs, and the woman said she tried to escape. But Qualls went back upstairs, meeting her in the hallway. He took her jewelry, the man’s shoes and their phones, she said. Then he left and she ran to a neighbor’s home.

Ed Spreha, Qualls’ attorney, revealed through cross-examination at the hearing that the woman declined a rape examination.

She testified that sometime before the night of the attacks, Qualls had texted the man she was sleeping with to tell him that if he talked to her again, Qualls would hurt him.

The other man did not testify during the hearing last September. He suffered brain swelling and facial fractures which required four incisions to be operated on, the woman testified. His jaw needed to be reset and wired shut.

Qualls, a military veteran, was accepted into Dauphin County’s Veterans’ Court program, a diversionary program similar to the county’s drug court, which focuses on addressing underlying issuesrather than imposing significant sentences.

Veteran’s Court is known to be drastically more difficult than Drug Court with more intense hoops to jump through, according to Judge William Tully, the judge assigned to veteran’s court.

Veteran’s Court acts like an intervention for first-time offenders like Qualls. Qualls will be assigned a mentor, and meet with a group of other veterans weekly.

“It is for those who want to turn it around,” Tully said. “They all have a sense of honor.”