An Oak Harbor man reported to police that an unknown black man stabbed him in the chest May 25, but his girlfriend later admitted that she was the one who attacked him with a steak knife, court documents state.

Prosecutors charged the woman, 33-year-old Ronalda Tom, in Island County Superior Court May 31 with assault in the second degree, a domestic violence charge. She could face three to nine months in jail under the standard sentencing range if convicted of the charge.

Oak Harbor Police Sgt. John Dyer responded to the report of a stabbing at an apartment on NE Seventh Avenue. He found a bloodied man who had been stabbed in the chest, a serious injury that required him to be transported to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for treatment.

The man told the officer that an unknown black man, scruffy and dressed in all black, stabbed him in the parking lot and silently walked away, Dyer wrote.

While police were searching for the alleged assailant, Dyer spoke to a friend of the victim, who claimed that Tom admitted that she had stabbed the man, the report states. Dyer wrote that Tom and the man live together and have a history of physical and verbal disputes.

According to Dyer’s report, Tom eventually admitted that she had stabbed her boyfriend with a steak knife during a physical altercation. She said her boyfriend concocted the story of the unknown assailant in order to protect her from getting in legal trouble, court documents show.