"So You Think You Can Dance" winner tries to strangle his girlfriend

A winner of the "So You Think You Can Dance" competition has been charged with two felony counts of domestic violence, one count of assault with a deadly weapon, a glass vase, and misdemeanor counts of simple battery and vandalism.

Joshua Demon Allen, 27, had already been convicted on January 13, 2016 of willfully injuring his girlfriend after which a restraining order against him had been granted. The order prohibited him from even communicating with his girlfriend.

Then, on April 13, Allen allegedly broke the restraining order by reportedly assaulting and attempting to strangle the girlfriend.

He was awaiting prosecution on that charge when, on June 19, he was accused by the LA District Attorney's office of attacking the same woman. She fled to a nearby coffeeshop to ask for help, but Allen allegedly chased her to that venue. In the coffeeshop, witnesses allege that Allen threw a glass vase at a woman who attempted to help the victim and attacked a man who also tried to assist the victim. The complaint against him claims that Allen proceeded at this point to vandalize the coffeeshop until he was finally subdued by those present.

If convicted as charged, Allen could receive a maximum sentence of ten years in prison. Bail has been requested at $270,000.

Allen won the Fox dance series competition in 2008. He has appeared in two movies, "Step Up3D" (2010) and "Footloose" (a 2011 remake). On the Hollywood IMDb website, he is listed as an actor and peers flirtatiously from a glamour photo. His rank is down some 28,000 points today.

So You Think You Can Dance is an American televised dance competition show that airs on Fox in the United States and is the flagship series of the international So You Think You Can Dance television franchise. It was created by American Idol producers Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe and is produced by 19 Entertainment and Dick Clark Productions. The series premiered on July 20, 2005 with over ten million viewers and ended the summer season as the top-rated show on television. The first season was hosted by American news personality Lauren Sánchez. Since the second season, it has been hosted by former British children's television personality and game show emcee Cat Deeley. During its second season, the program remained the No. 1 rated summer show (adults aged 18–49), but it has declined in ratings since.

The show features a tiered format wherein dancers trained in a variety of dance genres enter open auditions held in a number of major U.S. cities to showcase their talents and may move forward through successive additional rounds of auditions to test their ability to adapt to different styles. At the end of this process, a small number of dancers are chosen as finalists. These dancers move on to the competition's main phase, where they perform solo, duet, and group dance numbers on live television. They compete for the votes of the broadcast viewing audience which, combined with the input of a panel of judges, determines which dancers advance to the next stage from week to week. The number of finalists has varied as determined by a season's format, but has often been 20 contestants.

Competitors attempt to master various dance styles, including classical, contemporary, ballroom, hip-hop, street, club, jazz, and musical theatre styles, among others. These are usually assigned by a luck-of-the-draw system during the successive weeks of elimination. The eventual champion wins a cash prize (typically $250,000) and the title "America's Favorite Dancer". In twelve seasons, the winners have been Nick Lazzarini, Benjamin "Benji" Schwimmer, Sabra Johnson, Joshua Allen, Jeanine Mason, Russell Ferguson, Lauren Froderman, Melanie Moore, Eliana Girard, Chehon Wespi-Tschopp, Amy Yakima, Du-Shaunt "Fik-Shun" Stegall, Ricky Ubeda, and Gaby Diaz. Girard and Wespi-Tschopp shared the title as dual-winners for the ninth season, and Yakima and Stegall as the winners of the tenth. The thirteenth season premiered on May 30, 2016 featuring dancers between the ages of 8 and 13; the top 10 finalists were paired with a So You Think You Can Dance "All-Star" as a mentor and partner.