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Family Says Brooklyn Man Arrested For Torturing Girlfriend Is “Loving And Playful Person”
By
Ben Yakas
Published Aug 4, 2012
Modified Aug 4, 2012
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Aug 4, 2012
Modified Aug 4, 2012
Share
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The sister of the Brooklyn man who has been accused of kidnapping and torturing his girlfriend in his Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment for over a month defended her brother, calling him a "loving and playful person." Anthony Matthews, 31, allegedly kidnapped his 26-year-old girlfriend and kept her locked up in his apartment for 31 days while beating her with a large piece of wood, repeatedly burning her genitalia and legs with a heated-up screwdriver, and breaking her teeth with a handgun. But Matthews sister says the victim made up the kidnapping as a way to get him back: “My brother didn’t do it,” Lanette told the News. “She thought by her doing this, it would make him feel sorry for her and now he’s in jail...I guess she did this to herself to make him feel sorry for her."
“She said she met a guy on craigslist and she was prostituting herself for money,” Lanette said. “She said she burned herself with an iron.” Lanette claims her brother would never have tortured a woman. Matthews' police record includes two arrests for trespassing, 18 months for a weapons charge, and he apparently spent 11 years for an assault conviction, and was turned down for parole four times. In 2009, the parole board wrote: “If released at this time there is a reasonable probability you would not live and remain at liberty without violating the law. Your release is incompatible with the welfare and safety of the community.”
NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the couple had an “on and off relationship” and that the victim was in “some form of involuntary custody” for about two years. “She was mutilated, she was assaulted in this continuing relationship,” he added. In January, the woman accused Matthews of rape after she wound up in a hospital in Peekskill, but that case was dropped after she refused to cooperate with the prosecution.
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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