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Georgia man gets 40-year sentence for boiling water attack on gays

August 25, 2016 10:25 AM EDT

(Reuters) - A Georgia truck driver was sentenced to 40 years in prison for pouring boiling water over a gay couple, a district attorney's spokesman said on Thursday.

Martin Blackwell, 48, was convicted by a jury on Wednesday of 10 charges of aggravated battery and aggravated assault, said the spokesman for Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard Jr.

Blackwell told police he heated water and poured it over Anthony Gooden Jr. and Marquez Tolbert while they slept because he was disgusted by their relationship.

The attack occurred in February in an apartment in the Atlanta suburb of College Park where Gooden's mother, who was dating Blackwell, lived.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Henry Newkirk sentenced Blackwell to 40 years in prison.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution quoted prosecutors as saying both victims required skin grafts after the attack. Gooden spent nearly a month in a hospital, including two weeks in a medically induced coma, and Tolbert was hospitalized for 10 days, it said.

Tolbert was 21 and Gooden 23 at the time of the attack.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Bill Trott)



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