A former Army doctor was sentenced to 30 years in jail on Friday for assaulting his wife and tying her with duct tape to a pole in their basement, according to the Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney in Virginia. The event occurred in September 2020, around a month after the defendant, Drew Steiner, 61, raped and illegally recorded a lady he met online. He is already serving a ten-year sentence for that.
“Mr. Steiner committed a series of attacks in late 2020, and this sentencing marks the end of a painful saga for everyone involved,” Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano said in a statement released by Law&Crime. “While he is already serving a 10-year sentence in another case, this sentence helps reassure our community that Steiner can no longer endanger our neighbors.”
The defendant had previously served in the Army and worked as a civilian at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, according to a hospital spokeswoman speaking with D.C. NBC affiliate WRC in April 2021.
According to the publication, Steiner’s wife testified at his trial, claiming that he had only recently recovered from COVID-19. He requested to leave quarantine and enter their bedroom. But then he pinned her to the bed.
“I pleaded, ‘Please, I don’t feel well. “I can’t breathe, and he said, ‘That’s the point,'” she testified.
She used a sandal to defend herself, but he later beat her skull with it.
When she grabbed an aerosol can to defend herself, he threatened, “If you use that, I’m going to shatter your face, and you know I will.”
It ended with him duct-taping her in the basement, turning off the lights, and leaving. This provided her the opportunity to break free from her bonds and flee to her neighbor’s house.
That neighbor, Carmella Dillman, told WRC in the 2021 report that she was sleeping when she awoke to the sound of a loud knock on the door. It was the wife.
“It turned out to be our neighbor,” Dillman explained. “She kept whispering through the door that her husband was trying to kill her, so I called the police.”
Dillman learned more about the situation later on.
“I am shocked to find out everything that has happened since,” she told me. “One of our biggest issues is that we didn’t know what happened that night.”