Brooklyn man sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for kidnapping and torturing ex-girlfriend

Victim Held Captive for a Month; Beaten, Burned with Iron and Heated Screwdriver, Nearly Died

December 17, 2015 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Anthony Matthews. Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn DA’s Office

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Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson announced on Thursday that a 34-year-old man was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the month-long torture he inflicted on his former girlfriend while she was held captive inside his Brooklyn apartment in 2012. The defendant tied up the victim with cords and wires, beat her with a piece of wood and burned her all over her body, leaving her with life-threatening injuries.

“The defendant deserves this harsh punishment for his inhumane and barbaric torture of an innocent woman,” said Thompson. “May this sentence bring some solace to the victim for the unimaginable horror that she endured.”

The DA identified the defendant as Anthony Matthews, 34, of 263A Bainbridge St. in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He was sentenced Thusrday to 25 years to life in prison before Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Alan Marrus, following his conviction on Nov. 18, 2015 of first-degree kidnapping and first-degree assault after a jury trial.

Thompson said that according to trial testimony, the defendant and the 29-year-old victim maintained an on-again, off-again relationship that was abusive at times. On June 29, 2012, the defendant picked up the victim from her father’s home in Peekskill, N.Y. and brought her to his Brooklyn apartment.

Once in the apartment, the defendant tied her up with extension cords and telephone wires, repeatedly beat her with a 2-by-4 piece of wood and continuously threatened to kill her, according to testimony. About two weeks into the ordeal, the victim attempted to escape. In response, the defendant beat her up, broke her teeth by shoving a gun into her mouth, burned her inner thighs with a hot iron and mutilated her body, including her genitalia, with a screwdriver that he heated with a lighter, the evidence showed. Throughout the month of captivity, the victim’s family did not know where she was.

On July 30, 2012, Matthews left the victim by the threshold of his mother’s apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant, rang the bell and fled. He instructed the victim to lie and say she prostituted herself and was attacked by a man she met on Craigslist.

The DA said that the victim was taken to Woodhull Hospital in septic shock due to a serious infection, according to the evidence at trial. She also suffered fractured ribs, spinal damage, lacerated liver, fractured nose, burns all over her body and open wounds that exposed bones.

—Information from the Brooklyn DA’s Office