AUBURN – A man who beat a Lewiston woman with a crowbar during a dispute over OxyContin is going to prison for three years.

Cleve Herrick, 43, was ordered by a judge this week to serve three years of an eight-year sentence, followed by four years of probation. He will be barred from contact with Dorothy Treadwell during probation.

Herrick, of South Paris, struck Treadwell with a crowbar 20 or 30 times after she confronted him about stealing and selling her prescription drugs last March in Lewiston, police said.

Herrick was charged with elevated aggravated assault and aggravated assault. He pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, and prosecutors dropped the other assault charge.

Prosecutors wanted Herrick to serve the full eight years, arguing that he exhibited a complete lack of respect for human life.

“One more blow from Mr. Herrick’s crowbar could have resulted in the death of Dorothy Treadwell instead of an amputated finger or dented skull,” Assistant District Attorney Nicholas Worden wrote.

The dispute erupted when Treadwell accused Herrick of stealing her OxyContin and Darvocet, two potent painkillers.

Treadwell said Herrick assaulted her after she found him selling the drugs on the street in Lewiston. She was attacked with a crowbar when she bent down to pick up her pills, police said.

When police arrived, they found both Herrick and Treadwell bloodied. Treadwell had her pinkie amputated at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center.

OxyContin, a prescription painkiller, has been a growing source of violence in Maine in recent years, police said. Those who use it illegally scrape away the time-release coating, providing an effect comparable to a heroin high.

The maker of OxyContin is developing a new version that would not produce the “high,” making it useless to abusers.