CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Westlake detective charged with beating a suspect in April 2014 took the stand Monday and told a jury that he delivered a punch because he believed the suspect was about to attack him.

Robert Toth, who worked with the department since 1992, said that he clocked Teddie Abadie because Abadie flicked a cigarette at him, which constituted an assault.

"He cracks his neck and when I saw that, I said, 'here we go,'" Toth said. "That's what people do before they assault somebody."

Toth, a North Olmsted resident, is charged with beating Abadie without provocation during an interrogation that was part of a drug investigation.

Prosecutors said Toth also kicked Abadie and choked him with a seat belt. Abadie was never charged and denied any attempt to attack Toth during his testimony last week.

Toth maintained his innocence. His attorney said during opening statements that injuries Abadie had on the inside of his mouth and on the side of his torso were from sex acts.

Toth, normally a plainclothes officer with a beard, is clean-shaven and decked out in his police department dress uniform for the trial. He denied kicking or choking Abadie, calling it a "one-punch case." He said he arrested Abadie because Abadie was suspected of hiding drugs and guns for someone else.

He said he did pull into a cemetery, but not to intimidate Abadie. Instead, he did so to loosen Abadie's handcuffs and chose that location so that nobody saw Abadie and thought of him as a snitch.

Toth's partner, officer Jeremiah Bullins, testified last week that he also punched Abadie in the chest and that he saw Toth assault Abadie. Toth said Monday that the first time he heard about Bullins punching Abadie was in November 2014 after a federal grand jury was already hearing the case.

The trial is expected to wrap up this week. U.S. District Judge Donald Nugent on Thursday dismissed one obstruction count, which stemmed from an accusation that Toth lied to an FBI agent he saw in public.