Victim, daughter appeal for reduced sentence.
By The American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: A Pakistani American man from West Haven, Connecticut, Mohammad Chaudhry, 52, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for throwing boiling oil on his estranged wife.
The 2013 attack by Chaudhry on his wife put her in the hospital for nearly a month, with the woman having to get four skin grafts, reported Fox News. The oil burned through the woman’s blanket, her skin and her mattress.
Chaudhry was taken into custody shortly after the incident at his apartment at 195 Canton St., police said. His 41-year-old wife was rushed to the Connecticut Burn Center at Bridgeport Hospital, police said.
The woman’s teenage son called police at 4:40 a.m. to report that someone had just killed his mother. Responding officers noticed a strong odor of burning oil inside the apartment, police said, the Fox report said.
The couple’s teenaged children told officers that their parents had separated in the past year, but their mother decided to sleep over Tuesday night to be with her children.
Police said Chaudhry entered the room where she was sleeping and threw hot oil on her before fleeing. The children heard their mother screaming and rushed to her aid, police said.
“Short of murder, it’s about as bad a domestic violence case as you can get,” Superior Court Judge Frank Iannotti told Chaudhry at the sentencing last week, reported New Haven Register.
“To pour hot oil onto the face of a sleeping woman, your wife, the mother of your children is just unspeakable,” Milford State’s Attorney Kevin D. Lawlor told the judge.
Before the attack, Chaudhry told his son to get out of the bed so he wouldn’t be injured, Lawlor said, the Register reported.
While Lawlor sought a “severe sentence,” the victim, in a letter read in court by a college-age daughter, said Chaudhry made “a terrible mistake.” Both women asked for the “minimum sentence” because of Chaudhry’s age. The daughter said he was “a great father.”
“My mom has recovered her health and is looking forward to her life with her children,” the daughter said.
Chaudhry “regrets his actions,” defense attorney Matthew J. Gaidos of Plainville said. Gaidos pointed out that Chaudhry’s wife “has found it in her heart to forgive him.”
Chaudhry is bipolar, but was not diagnosed or treated, Gaidos said. Chaudhry’s family had been in turmoil leading up to the attack, Gaidos told the judge, and he didn’t know how to deal with it, the Register reported.
Chaudhry retired from a government job in Pakistan and immigrated here so his four children could get an education.
Gaidos told the judge his client would probably be deported back to his native Pakistan after serving his time.
Chaudhry, asked by the judge if he wanted to say anything, apologized through an Urdu interpreter.