NEWMARKET -- Thomas "Tony" Butler is doing much better than doctors expected after the battered and starved senior was rescued from his common-law wife and her drug-addicted new lover.
York Regional Police Det.-Const. Hoyt Miller "deserves high praise" for patiently and thoroughly putting together a case against the man and woman who kept Butler, 69, chained to a bed with a cord on one hand, a dog leash on the other, Crown attorney Michael Demczur said.
"The neglect Mr. Butler suffered was ... a long, slow, steady slide towards death," Demczur said in his summary of the case prior to the conviction Tuesday of Butler's common-law wife Yasmin Madi.
Madi, 42, who got power of attorney over Butler, 69, after his debilitating stroke in late 2004, and Ghassen "Gus" Shakeri, 42, were given jail terms and probation this week.
Madi pleaded guilty to failing to provide the necessities of life. Shakeri aborted his planned trial by pleading guilty to one count of assault after Madi co-operated with police by implicating him in the abuse of her husband.
PSYCHIATRIC HELP
Given credit for time served since their arrests following Butler's rescue in March, Shakeri's jail term ended Tuesday when Madi was sentenced to 18 months and ordered to spend three more months behind bars. Madi was ordered also to get psychiatric treatment and will be on probation for three years.
Madi was driven by "craven interest, a flagrant indifference to Mr. Butler's suffering, a man she once professed to love," the prosecutor said.
After Butler was taken to York Central Hospital, "the doctors told me that he would never recover to the point of having the quality of life that he had known," Miller told the Sun.
Though he still cannot talk well or use his hands due to paralysis, the former tool-and-die maker's condition has vastly improved since his son and daughter forced their way into his Baker St. apartment in Richmond Hill after realizing their father had been beaten and was not being fed.
"I had a conversation with him last week," Miller said. "He's doing well."
He is now in a nursing home and fleshed up to about 130 pounds -- almost double the 68 pounds he weighed when found.
"He enjoys where he is," Miller said. "I'm happy that he is doing well and enjoying life."
In his court summary, Demczur was also critical of a government-financed service that provided professional aides for daily visits to bathe and attend the senior.
Despite his deteriorating condition, evident bruising, three broken fingers and severely swollen leashed hand, "even oversight by community nurses did not aid Mr. Butler."
Interviewed by police after his rescue, "the fact they saw nothing that concerned them seems unacceptable," the prosecutor told court, adding the company's records of those homecare visits "have disappeared."
It was Butler's two children -- daughter Julie Henderson and son Justin -- who came to his rescue.
During one of the rare visits allowed by Madi and Shakeri, Butler told his daughter that someone "hit me."
She alerted her brother.
"The family quite justifiably and quite rightly forced their way into the home," Judge Peter Bourque said.
The shocked children alerted paramedics and police. Miller said he became involved in the case immediately.
The officer said Butler was so weak during a taped interview two days after he was admitted to hospital that he could only nod "yes" or "no" to questions about what happened in the tiny one-bedroom apartment.
But when the detective asked the plucky senior who left him covered in bruises, one eye bloody and swollen, he struggled to speak.
A taped interview played on a TV monitor in the courtroom prior to Madi's sentencing Tuesday, showed Butler staring straight ahead in his hospital bed after managing only a gravelly whisper when Miller asked who had punched him.
Then Butler's head moved, up and down, repeatedly nodding his damnation of Shakeri.
"I couldn't believe what I was seeing, as nurses removed layers and layers of foundation and makeup from his face, which had been used to cover up his bruises," Justin Butler told court while reading a victim impact statement.
"I could see the pain and fear in his eyes," he said. "He will never be able to hold my daughter, his granddaughter, and tell her he loves her.
"The man he was is gone because of the abuse by Yasmin."
