A Gary man got a 10-year split term Thursday after admitting he slashed at a woman’s throat with a boxcutter.
David J. Moore, 44, pleaded guilty in September to aggravated battery.
Judge Gina Jones sentenced him to eight years in prison, one year in Lake County Community Corrections and one year of probation.
Deputy Prosecutor Infinity Westberg read a letter from the victim, who said she was left traumatized, afraid that Moore would go after her again. Her children were also deeply affected.
“I cry all the time,” the woman wrote, adding she “missed all the red flags.”
Gary Police responded at 8:20 a.m. March 16, 2024 to an apartment on the 1100 block of W. 5th Avenue, according to court documents. The woman told police she dated Moore on and off since 2019.
At the hospital, she had a bandage over her neck and bruised eyes. Her jaw was swollen from an allergic reaction, she said.
The woman told police Moore hit her two weeks earlier, explaining her bruised eyes, the affidavit states. He had threatened to kill her and her kids multiple times, she said.
She went over to Moore’s apartment on March 15, “so he could take me and not my kids. I sacrificed myself,” she told investigators.
Moore made dinner with mushrooms but didn’t know she was allergic, the affidavit states. He ran to CVS for Benadryl but ran into another man she was seeing. The two men argued.
Moore was “upset” by the time he got back and accused her of seeing other men and went through her phone after the other man called her. The woman said she went to sleep.
The next morning, Moore picked up the argument and picked up a box cutter.
“She probably would be dead if he hadn’t fed her mushrooms,” Westberg said during Thursday’s hearing, which caused the woman’s neck to swell. The prosecutor asked for 10 years.
Defense lawyer Adam Tavitas noted the woman was left with a neck scar and acknowledged her psychological damage.
His client had a “pretty minimal criminal history” with one juvenile and one adult misdemeanor conviction. He asked for Moore to avoid prison.
Moore apologized in court.
Jones told Moore he had a “lot going on for the last couple of years,” racking up a small crime “spree.” In exchange for the plea, prosecutors also dismissed two prior cases for cocaine possession and a handgun case, records show.