TAUNTON - A South Attleboro man who bit a portion of a police officer's ear off during a domestic dispute more than three years ago was sentenced Thursday to a 4- to 6-year prison term.

Daniel C. Berghman, 28, turned around in Taunton Superior Court shortly after Judge E. Susan Garsh issued the sentence and used both hands to give his parents the middle finger.

After his mother, Amy, left the courtroom, he turned around again and whispered to his father Earle, "You happy? You happy?"

Garsh found Berghman guilty in October of mayhem and assault and battery on a police officer for biting a portion of Officer Joseph Enegren's left ear off in April 2004.

Enegren was dispatched to Berghman's Sibley Street home in South Attleboro because Berghman was asked to leave the house. Berghman has a history of mental health and substance abuse problems and violent crime. Berghman claimed at trial that he was not criminally responsible because of his mental problems and his parents blamed Enegren's actions for the incident.

Before Garsh handed down the sentence, Enegren, 41, a 21-year veteran of the police department, addressed the court and said he continues to suffer from the injury, despite surgery on his ear.

For everyone in the courtroom, Enegren said, the case will be over when they go home. But he said he thinks about the incident when he responds to domestic disputes and continues to suffer pain and loss of hearing.

"It's not going to be over for me, and it never will be," Enegren said.

Berghman apologized in a brief statement and said he never meant to harm anybody.

"I'm sorry for what happened to the officer," Berghman said.

Afterwards Enegren, accompanied by his wife, Teri, said he wished Berghman was given a stiffer sentence. But he said he understood the judge and the prosecutor used state guidelines to fashion the sentence.

"The guidelines that the judge and the DA went by are fine with me," he said.

After release from prison, Berghman will be placed on probation for three years with strict conditions concerning counseling and treatment of his mental health and substance abuse problems.

Garsh rejected a plea of leniency from Berghman's lawyer, Bernard Grossberg, who asked the judge to impose a probationary sentence, saying prison would only worsen Berghman's mental condition. "He suffers from certain conditions that make him somewhat different than the average person. Daniel Berghman did not, in any way, want to harm the officer," Grossberg said.

Garsh agreed that Berghman did have "personality traits" that made him different, but said he had a long history of substance abuse and a criminal record with crimes of violence and a previous jail stint.

She said Berghman was not an adolescent and acted "explosively" when he thought he was being treated unfairly. She said she found Enegren's statement to the court "moving."

"The act that was done was a horrible act. It was not just a swing at a person. The act itself cries out for punishment," Garsh said, adding that the defendant's conduct could not be tolerated.

In court for the sentencing were Detective James Cote and officers James MacDonald, Kevin Fuoco and James Dufort. All testified at the trial and came to support Enegren.

The officers praised Assistant District Attorney Patrick Bomberg for work in prosecuting the case.