JUDGE

Wife Sentenced for Assaulting Husband With Hot Oil

A woman who threw hot cooking oil on her husband and chased him with a hand ax around their home after he asked for a divorce is now headed to prison.

Mauvette Mattadeen received a six-year sentence Friday and will be deported to her native Jamaica once she's freed from prison. A Somerset County jury had convicted her in June of aggravated assault, but cleared her of attempted murder charges stemming from the April 2012 attack.

The Courier News reports that the 43-year-old Franklin Township resident could have received a longer prison term. But the judge gave her a lesser sentence, citing her history of domestic violence by males "who were authority figures in her life."

The judge said that the years of abuse had "created a strong resentment and provocation which came to a tragic result," but said they did not excuse her actions. Mattadeen's lawyer had argued at trial that she acted in self-defense.

In what authorities said was a "preplanned attack," Mattadeen sprayed a chemical in her the eyes of her sleeping husband. When he went into the shower to wash the chemical from his eyes, she poured hot oil on him, causing him to suffer second and third-degree burns over his body.

The attack left Mattadeen's husband with burns over 23 percent of his body and without sight in one eye. He also lost hearing in one ear, suffered permanent scarring and has undergone multiple surgeries.

The couple is no longer together.

Mauvette Mattadeen will receive credit for the 847 days she has been in jail since her arrest.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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