Brooklyn Man Accused Of Tying Up And Brutalizing Woman He Kept Prisoner
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Police say a woman suffered terrible injuries while she was held prisoner by an ex-boyfriend. On Friday he was charged with attempted murder, assault and kidnapping.
A brownstone on Bainbridge Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant is allegedly a house of horrors. It's where ex-con Anthony Matthews Jr. is accused of torturing a former lover over the course of a month.
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When CBS 2's Tony Aiello arrived on the scene Friday, Matthews' immediate neighbors posted signs asking for privacy, while other residents admitted the details are shocking.
"That's mean, that's brutal. She's a human. Why would you do that?" one person said.
Investigators said Matthews kidnapped the 26-year-old victim from a home in the Westchester County city of Peekskill in late June, saying he would "shoot and kill her family if she didn't cooperate."
He's accused of making her a virtual prisoner in his apartment. According to charging documents, the victim said she was "beat with a large piece of wood" repeatedly and "tied up with various wires." Matthews is also accused of breaking the woman's teeth when he slapped her mouth with a handgun and of burning her genitals with a hot screwdriver, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said.
According to the criminal complaint, when the victim arrived at the hospital she had lost half of her blood. She had terrible injuries, including countless burns and deep wounds to her legs.
Police said the victim finally escaped after Matthews took her to his mother's apartment at the Lafayette Gardens complex.
"He lets her stay with his mother saying she was attacked, assaulted by someone else," Commissioner Kelly said.
That's not the story Matthew's sister, Lanette, told CBS 2's Aiello off camera. She claimed the victim is a troubled woman who is lying about what happened.
Police said when they knocked on Matthews' door on Wednesday he acted guilty, jumping out a window and trying to escape through an empty lot next door. They caught him as he tried to flee and on Friday night he was back behind bars, just two years after finishing a stretch in prison for assault.
The alleged victim is recovering at Woodhull Medical Center, where her condition has been upgraded from critical to stable.
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