10 years in prison urged for David

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, June 6, 2001

By Scott North

Herald Writer

A man convicted of beating his frail wife for years on a filthy sailboat should spend a decade behind bars, Snohomish County prosecutors said Wednesday.

Victor David, 61, formerly of Marysville, was convicted of second-degree assault May 21. A Snohomish County jury found he battered his wife, Linda David, 52, so severely that she was left blind, brain-damaged and with her body contorted by broken limbs and scar tissue.

Judge Thomas Wynne has scheduled sentencing for June 18. Under state sentencing guidelines, David faces up to a year behind bars. But deputy prosecutor Kathy Webber argued in court papers that the crime warrants the maximum punishment under law — 10 years in prison.

"Linda David will never recover and be normal again," Webber wrote. "She cannot take off a cast or pull her arm out of a sling and have the use of her legs and arms again. She will not be able to read a paper, see a movie or watch a sunset. Even if she somehow, miraculously, could, she would not remember them the next day. She now, and always will be, a shell of the person she once was."

David and his wife lived at waterfront locations from Tacoma to Everett on a dilapidated sailboat they shared with up to seven German shepherd dogs. The defendant told people that his wife suffered from multiple sclerosis, and he collected up to $500 a month from the state as her caregiver.

Linda David was removed from the boat in 1997 after a state social worker went to a marina at the mouth of the Snohomish River in Everett looking for the couple. At the time, state officials thought the woman may have been dead and that Victor David was fraudulently collecting the money.

Instead, medical experts testified that evidence suggested Victor David had rained "hundreds" of blows on his wife’s face, leaving her with a flattened nose, eyebrows thickened with scar tissue and her ears "cauliflowered."

"If that was not bad enough, he routinely abandoned her while he spent money he was collecting," Webber wrote. "The defendant was entrusted and even paid to care for her. He did exactly the opposite. There can be no greater abuse of trust."

Victor David, who was charged with the abuse in May 1999, steadfastly denied harming his wife. During two trials, he maintained that her injuries were the result of repeated falls on the boat.

The day after he was convicted, David called The Herald from the jail and continued to insist he was innocent and the victim of an unfair court system. He also said he expects to receive a 10-year sentence.

To impose an exceptional sentence, Wynne needs to find a single factor supporting departure from state guidelines. In the papers filed Wednesday, prosecutors maintain there are six distinct grounds to support extra punishment.

"There is no doubt this is an exceptional case," Webber wrote. "It is exceptional in the degree of damage caused to Linda David. It is exceptional in the duration of time Linda David was forced to suffer at the hands of the defendant. It is exceptional in the manner and method the defendant used to conceal his crime; abusing and controlling Linda David to the point of total submission and manipulating government social workers to satisfy his own financial ends."

Linda David lives at an area nursing home. In August, the state agreed to pay her $8.8 million to settle a lawsuit that accused the state of negligence for failing to properly oversee her care.

You can call Herald Writer Scott North at 425-339-3431

or send e-mail to north@heraldnet.com.