Out of prison, Victor David wants to reunite with the wife he abused

Victor David has long insisted he isn't the "monster" behind what some have called the most egregious case of spousal abuse in state history.

He proclaimed his innocence nine years ago after medics pulled his emaciated, battered wife, Linda, from the cramped and dirty sailboat where authorities say she was kept as a prisoner.

He maintained he was wrongfully convicted of second-degree assault during the five years he spent in a Spokane-area prison.

And now that he's newly released from prison, David says he only wants to be reunited with Linda, who is under the constant care of nurses. He faces three restraining orders keeping him from his estranged wife, and he plans to fight efforts to have him deported to his native Canada.

"We've been happily married for 25 years," David said by phone before his release Monday from Airway Heights Correctional Complex. David, 66, says he wants to give back the millions Linda was awarded in a settlement with the state and whisk her away to Iraq, where he plans to drive an oil-tanker truck.

But Linda, 57, doesn't remember David. She offers a blank stare when asked who gave her the tarnished wedding ring jammed on her chubby finger. Despite years of therapy, she can barely talk, can hardly see, can shuffle only a few steps without assistance and has no short-term memory.

Lynne Fulp, executive director of Partners in Care, the Green Lake guardianship firm appointed to care for Linda and oversee her trust, has spent years keeping Linda's whereabouts hidden from David in fear he'd try to contact her. With David's prison release, her fears have been elevated.

"Even if he's deported, I don't know how secure that is," Fulp said.

"A simple case"

For more than a decade, the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) paid David to serve as his wife's caregiver after he claimed she had multiple sclerosis. But a DSHS worker became suspicious when David refused to allow him to see Linda. The worker summoned Everett police in early 1997 to the rotting sailboat in Everett's Seacrest Marina where the couple lived.

Police found Linda covered in vomit and surrounded by dog feces. Her nose was bulbous, ears cauliflowered and her face a map of knots and bruises. Her limbs were deformed by years of untreated fractures.

"It was a simple case of before and after," said Snohomish County Deputy Prosecutor Mark Roe, who prosecuted David. "Before she spent time on a boat with Victor David she looked one way, when she was pulled off she barely looked human."

In April 2001, David was convicted of second-degree assault and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was released Monday after given credit for the time he had served in jail awaiting trial and for good behavior while in prison.

The state paid a record $8.8 million to Linda after a claim was filed on her behalf alleging DSHS was negligent in the handling of her case.

Linda's caregivers, who are also trustees of the multimillion-dollar settlement, have pressed for the couple's divorce on her behalf. A King County Superior County granted a dissolution last summer, but Victor David filed an appeal. The case is pending in the state Court of Appeals.

David believes efforts to dissolve the couple's marriage do not have the backing of his wife.

"They tried to say Linda wants a divorce," David said. "I want what Linda wants. Linda did not want the divorce."

Deportation sought

Upon his release from prison on Monday, David was picked up by U.S. immigration officials. He awaits a deportation hearing. While federal immigration officials would not comment on the case, David's lawyer says the deportation is being sought because David is a convicted felon.

David's attorney, John Crowley, said the deportation might not happen because while David was in prison the U.S. Supreme Court deemed exceptional sentences unconstitutional, which Crowley says are grounds for the conviction to be appealed. When he came up for sentencing, David faced between three and nine months in jail but received a 10-year prison sentence, the maximum time someone could serve for second-degree assault.

In 2004, the high court ruled that exceptional sentences are unconstitutional because judges make the decision independently.

Roe said that even if the case returns to court, the length of David's sentence — not his felony conviction — will be called into question. Because David has already completed his exceptional sentence, it's likely a judge would do nothing, Roe said, and it's also unlikely that any decision on David's sentence would affect his deportation.

Linda is now living on a five-acre estate purchased with part of the settlement money. She has transformed from timid and terrified to someone who joyfully babbles about everything. Her ears remain bulbous and the map of white scars still weaves across her face, but now Linda often smiles and laughs.

Linda's weekly therapy includes horseback riding, massages, painting, stretching, singing, dancing and swimming.

Because of the repeated blows she took to the head, experts say, her brain shrunk an estimated 30 to 40 percent. Fulp says the head trauma is why Linda has forgotten about her estranged husband.

Three restraining orders are in place to keep David away from Linda. One was set when Partners in Care were appointed by the court, another was secured when the divorce was granted and the third was set when David was convicted.

Hearing that years later David still talks about Linda is not a surprise to Roe, who says he is sickened by David's talk of reuniting with her.

"I hope he does get deported and stays out of this country," Roe said. "The United States has its own homegrown wife-beaters. We don't need anybody else's."

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com