BANGOR – The convicted sex offender who attacked an 81-year-old Hampden woman in her home while she was watching the Super Bowl was sentenced Wednesday in Penobscot County Superior Court to seven years in prison.

The woman faked a heart attack during the Feb. 3 attack and scared off Daniel K. Thanem, 45, of Winterport, who grabbed her from behind and started pushing her toward a bedroom.

The victim did not attend the sentencing, but members of her family did, said Assistant District Attorney Alice Clifford after Wednesday’s hearing.

Thanem was sentenced to 10 years with all but five years suspended after pleading guilty to burglary and assault charges. He also was sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered to pay a $300 fine.

Because Thanem was on probation for previous convictions on less serious charges when the Feb. 3 attack occurred, the judge also revoked the remainder of his probation and ordered him to serve an additional two years in prison.

Thanem was convicted of rape in Alabama in 1984 and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

He was indicted in April by the Penobscot County grand jury on charges of burglary, aggravated criminal trespass, assault and unlawful sexual touching in connection with the Super Bowl Sunday incident. The trespass and unlawful sexual touching charges were dismissed.

He faced up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $20,000 on the burglary charge alone.

The woman was watching the Super Bowl about 10 p.m. when she spotted a man walking through her house toward her bedroom, Hampden police Sgt. Dan Stewart said in February.

When the woman asked what the man was doing in her home, he grabbed her from behind and began pushing her toward the bedroom, Stewart said. At the entrance to her bedroom, the woman braced herself against the door frame, struggling to break free from the man’s grasp.

She told him she was having a heart attack, Stewart said. After the woman told the intruder her heart medication was in her car, he dragged her to the garage to retrieve the medication. Once they returned to the home, the man pushed the woman into a bathroom and told her to stay there. He then fled and the woman called police.

During a routine patrol, Hampden police Officer Ben Eyles pulled up behind a pickup truck parked on the side of the road near the victim’s home, Stewart said. The driver told Eyles “he was going home from a Super Bowl party and was going to take a nap.”

Although the woman did not see her attacker from the front, she described the boots and coat he was wearing, Stewart said. Her description of the attacker’s garb matched the clothes worn by the man Eyles was questioning just up the road.

Within minutes of the attack, Thanem was arrested and taken to the Penobscot County Jail, where he has been held since Super Bowl Sunday, unable to make bail.