A north Alabama police officer was sentenced to two years in a county jail Friday after a judge convicted him of assault and other charges for pointing a gun at a man and hitting him while off-duty late last year.

Max Ryan Dotson, a lieutenant with the Sheffield Police Department who has been on leave since he was charged in March, was found guilty of assault, menacing and reckless endangerment in connection with the incident, court records showed.

Dotson had a bench trial before Lauderdale County District Court Judge Carole C. Medley, who also found him not guilty of harassment.

She sentenced Dotson to one year in the Lauderdale County Detention Center on the assault charge and another year on the reckless endangerment charge. She sentenced the officer to six months in the Lauderdale County jail on the menacing charge, but the sentence will run concurrent with the assault term.

Demarcus Key, the victim in the case, said he did not know Dotson was a law enforcement officer at the time of the December 2022 incident. He said he believed the lieutenant would not face any consequences.

“I was pretty pleased with the verdict,” he told AL.com in a phone interview.

During the incident, Key said, Dotson approached him and “just asked me what I said to his daughter and I kept telling him I didn’t know what he was talking about.”

Key said Dotson then pulled a gun on him and hit him with his fist.

Harry Daniels, one of the attorneys representing Key, said Dotson “didn’t act like a law enforcement officer should act,” adding that he believed the charges against the lieutenant “were actually lax.”

A civil rights attorney, Daniels is representing a client in another case involving Dotson.

Dotson is one of 10 Sheffield officers being sued by Marvin Long, an unarmed Black man who was bitten by police dogs two years ago.

“This was not a case of ‘we have a bad apple,” Daniels said in light of Dotson’s sentence in the Key case — Key is Black — and the incident Long is suing over. “We have a bad apple orchard coming from the Sheffield Police Department, and something needs to be done.”

Dotson indicated he will appeal the decision in the Key case. He has 14 days to file a formal appeal.