CASTLE ROCK — A jury this afternoon aquitted Denver's former Secret Service chief on charges that he choked his wife during a fight over his infidelity.

Lon Garner, 57, was visibly relieved, sighing audibly after the verdict was read.

Garner was tried on two counts of second-degree assault. Prosectors said Garner choked his wife in a scuffle at the Eliabeth home last year.

Each count carried a minimum five-year prison sentence.

Testimony this morning in Douglas County District Court included medical experts who detailed the dangers Christine Marie Garner faced during the alleged strangulation.

Meanwhile, Douglas County Sheriff's Sgt. Russell W. Slade, who first interviewed and later arrested Lon Garner, recounted that the federal agent denied choking his wife.

Slade testified that Lon Garner said his wife had threatened: "You ruined my life and I'm going to ruin yours" before calling authorities Nov. 9, 2006 — 11 months after the altercation.

On Tuesday, the trial began with Christine Garner's tearful testimony as she described her husband's eyes during the attack.

They were "full of rage," said the 51-year-old wife said.

"He was crushing my airways with his thumbs. I couldn't believe it," she said.

According to testimony, the violence erupted during a confrontation over Lon Garner's extramarital affair.

The altercation put the rising career of Garner — a former Navy SEAL and Denver police officer turned federal special agent — on hold. After his arrest, he was placed on paid administrative leave.

In his opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Colin McCallin talked about Garner's training in hand-to-hand combat as he described the altercation between the couple at their Elizabeth home on Jan. 4, 2006.

"He assaulted her with deadly weapons," McCallin said. "His own hands."

Christine Garner, now estranged from her husband, had confronted him about a credit card statement she believed showed he'd sent flowers to a woman with whom he'd admitted to having an affair.

Lon Garner's attorney, Craig Truman, said his client was trying to calm his wife and that she tried to strike him several times.

The argument ended when their 21-year-old son said he saw his father choking his mother.

"I went after him as soon as I saw him," said Lon Garner Jr., a Navy petty officer. "I ran after him and punched him on the side of the head and wrestled him to the ground."

Christine Garner, who testified that she kicked her husband in the groin after his son punched him, was initially charged with third-degree assault. The charge was dismissed.

However, she is also facing criminal charges for allegedly stalking and making harassing phone calls to the woman Garner was seeing. Christine Garner admits that after she found out about her husband's affair, she mailed flyers to the woman's neighbors that said she was a home-wrecker.

Christine Garner wept during most of her testimony, beginning when she whispered "my husband," when she was asked to identify Lon Robert Garner.

Christine Garner's emotional state caused her husband to wipe away tears at times as he listened to her testimony.

Although the incident occurred Jan. 4 Christine Garner said she waited 11 months to report what happened to authorities. In an affidavit, she said her husband threatened that "if anyone tried to ruin his career, he would eliminate them from a distance, when they wouldn't be expecting it."

Garner, who is free on $50,000 bail, was put on paid administrative leave after his arrest.