A 55-year-old Westminster man was sentenced yesterday to three years in the Carroll County Detention Center for sexually assaulting his wife and videotaping the attack when she passed out after he got her drunk.
The man's wife, daughter and minister asked Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. for leniency, saying they were convinced that the defendant has reformed and that he has been going to counseling with his wife.
Judge Burns answered their pleas by saying he would not send the man to state prison. Instead, the man will serve his term on work release.
But, he said, "The way she was attacked and violated without her knowing . . . makes this an extremely vile crime."
The man pleaded guilty two months ago to a second-degree sex offense involving his wife. The offense occurred four years ago, according to court records.
A county grand jury indicted the man in June on counts of second-degree rape, second-degree sexual offense, child abuse and perverted sexual practices. The indictment said the man would abuse his wife after he had gotten her intoxicated and she became unconscious.
The indictment also alleged that the man had sexual contact with his wife's daughter, who is now an adult, while she was a minor.
The charges stemmed from the wife's discovery of the videotapes and her request to a Carroll judge for a restraining order to keep her husband away from her. After a 200-day restraining order was granted in April, Carroll sexual abuse investigators were made aware of the man's alleged actions. They and state prosecutors sought the indictment.
In a plea bargain, the man -- whose name is being withheld by The Sun to shield his wife's identity -- pleaded guilty to one count. Prosecutors agreed to drop the other three counts and agreed to argue for no more than 10 years imprisonment.
At yesterday's hearing, the man told his wife that he wanted their marriage to work. He was free on bail until yesterday and has been going to marriage counseling with his wife. The two have been married for 12 years.
"I want to apologize to my wife," the man said, looking toward the front row of the gallery where his wife and some of her children sat, some of them crying. "I do love you very much. I'm sorry I can't take it all back."
Several people -- including the man's wife, his minister and his daughter -- told Judge Burns that they had seen a transformation the man's behavior since the counseling began. "I think his attitude has changed, I think his thoughts have changed," the man's wife said. "He has shown remorse to me."
Those who testified on the man's behalf said that before counseling, he would leer at women, use profanity and assume that he could do whatever he wanted to with his wife.
Judge Burns said he was skeptical about the man's transformation.
"What we're building up to today is to put a good picture on everything so that I would be impressed," the judge said. "I wasn't born yesterday."
Assistant State's Attorney Clarence W. Beall III reminded Judge Burns that the man had told a psychiatrist that, "because it was my wife, and we were married, I didn't know it was an offense."
In a letter last month to Judge Burns, the man's wife asked for harsh punishment.
"He took from my body and did what he wanted to," she wrote. "It is such a shame and so sad for all of us."
But in a letter last week, and from the witness stand yesterday, the woman pleaded with the court to give her husband a break.
The judge said he didn't send the man to state prison because the defendant's wife would have lost his job income and medical insurance, causing "everything to crash down on her," and because she had asked the court not to send him to prison.