According to the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Fairfax County, Virginia, a former Army doctor was sentenced to 30 years in jail on Friday for beating his wife and tied her to a pole in their basement with duct tape.
The September 2020 incident occurred approximately one month after the defendant, 61-year-old Drew Steiner, sexually assaulted and unlawfully recorded a lady he had met online. For that, he has already served ten years in prison.
“Mr. Steiner committed a series of attacks in late 2020, and this sentencing is the end of a painful saga for everyone involved,” Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano stated. “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.”
In October 2023, a jury found Steiner guilty of attempted rape, malicious injury, and abduction with intent to file a report.
As a civilian employee of Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, the defendant had served in the Army before, a hospital spokesperson told in an April 2021 report.
According to the publication, the wife testified during Steiner’s trial, stating that he had recently recovered from COVID-19. He requested to go inside their bedroom and be released from quarantine. Subsequently, he secured her to the bed.
He repeatedly struck her head with the sandal that she had used to defend herself.
At one point, he threatened to “shatter your face, and you know that I will,” when she reached for an aerosol can to defend herself.
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Finally, he taped her with duct tape in the basement, turned out the lights, and walked out. This presented her with the chance to escape her confines and make her way to the neighbor’s house.
According to Carmella Dillman, the neighbor, she was sleeping when she heard a loud knocking at the door and woke up. It was the spouse.
“It turned out to be our neighbor,” Dillman stated. “She kept whispering through the door that her husband was trying to kill her, so I called the police.”
Dillman didn’t learn further specifics about the case until much later.
“I am shocked to find out everything that has happened since,” she stated. “One of our biggest issues is that we didn’t know what happened that night.”
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