A jury has cleared a former Omaha television newsman who once ran for Congress of a domestic violence charge.

Fifty-eight-year-old Michael Scott was found not guilty of the misdemeanor charge on Monday.

Prosecutors had said Scott’s estranged girlfriend reported that he had choked her, hit her in an eye and ripped off two fake fingernails while threatening her in a November incident.

Scott denied the accusations and said the woman made up the incident.

Scott ran as a Democrat for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1998 against Republican Lee Terry.

Before that, Scott had worked in television news at two stations in Omaha and at stations in Dallas and Denver and in Huntsville, Ala.