A week before a Vadnais Heights City Council member was to be sentenced in a case involving allegations of domestic violence against a woman he was seeing, Terry Nyblom called his now ex and asked her why she was doing this to him, authorities say.
The phone call allegedly violated an order for protection the woman had gotten from a court against Nyblom following the incident, prompting a second criminal charge to be filed against the 54-year-old.
He was charged with one count of violating a no-contact order Jan. 30, according to the criminal complaint filed against him in Ramsey County District Court.
Nyblom reached a deal with the state in the case and pleaded guilty to only a disorderly conduct charge. The rest of the charges were dismissed.
Ramsey County District Judge DeAnne Hilgers sentenced him to 40 hours of community service and ordered that he attend domestic violence counseling and continue to have no contact with the victim, according to court records.
He also received a stayed 90-day prison sentence that will he will have to serve only if he fails to meet the other terms of his probation.
Neither Nyblom’s defense attorney, Beau McGraw, nor Nyblom responded to requests for comment.
But Nyblom denied many of the allegations in the complaint shortly after he entered his guilty plea to the disorderly conduct count in November.
“I did not restrict her 911 call, I did not assault her, I did not threaten to hurt her nor did I ever make reference that the Sheriff won’t do anything to me because I’m a city council member,” he wrote in an email sent at the time.
Nyblom was taken into custody at his Vadnais Heights home in April after quarreling with a 53-year-old St. Paul woman in his house and trying to prevent her from placing a 911 call, according to the Ramsey County sheriff’s office.
Deputies responded to the residence on the 700 block of Hiawatha Avenue in response to a 911 caller.
They found the caller “crying, visibly shaking and (having) a hard time speaking because she was so upset,” according to an incident report. The woman stated that she was “involved in a romantic/sexual relationship with Terry Nyblom.”
She went on to tell deputies that Nyblom was “extremely intoxicated” and had been yelling at her to leave the house, according to the report. She said he also threatened her and threatened that she couldn’t do anything about his conduct because he was a city council member, the woman told authorities, according to court documents.
The woman also allegedly reported that Nyblom became physically combative.
A deputy who responded to the scene described Nyblom as appearing drunk at the time, according to the police report. Nyblom “admitted to consuming a six-pack but denied that anything physical happened” with the woman, the report said.
The victim in the case did not attend Nyblom’s sentencing hearing, according to Martin Norder, the attorney handling the case for the state.
Norder declined to comment on why the state offered Nyblom a plea deal.
The victim told police that Nyblom called her in violation of her no-contact order around 11:30 p.m. Jan. 27 asking her “why she would do this to him,” the complaint said.
When the woman reminded him he wasn’t supposed to contact her, he replied: “Well, I’m going to jail,” the complaint said.
He texted her two more times after she hung up on him, the woman told police, charges say.
While he remains a city council member, Nyblom was removed from his position as deputy mayor following the allegations.
The father of two was first elected to the Vadnais Heights City Council in 2012 and was re-elected to the seat in 2015.
He is an auto technician, according to his biography on the city’s website.