AUBURN - If Stephen Holbert truly loved his on-and-off girlfriend, he would not have stabbed her, Judge Thomas Leone said as he sentenced Holbert to 15 years in state prison and five years post-release supervision.
“Quite frankly,” Leone said in Cayuga County Court Tuesday, “when you love somebody, you don't plunge a steak knife in their stomach and twist it.”
Holbert, 48, with a last known address of Apt. Z-288, 2 Schwartz Drive, and currently held in Cayuga County Jail, was sentenced for the felony of second-degree attempted murder of a 43-year-old woman he has been involved with for eight years. Following the Sept. 16, 2006 stabbing at the Standart Woods complex in Auburn, the woman required more than 10 surgeries because of an internal organ injury.
Holbert had told the victim he researched on the Internet that a stabbing, twisting wound to the abdomen would never heal and she would die from it, Chief Assistant District Attorney Jon Budelmann said.
Holbert's criminal history has always involved a girlfriend or the mother of his children, Leone said. Holbert was sentenced to one to four years in state prison for the 1989 convictions of third-degree burglary and first-degree reckless endangerment.
The stocky man with a shaved head struggled to find words at first when he addressed the court.
He said he knew he had done wrong. “I pray for her every night. I still love her. I'm just very sorry for what happened,” Holbert said.
The woman is “lucky to be alive,” Budelmann said.
Holbert had broken her ribs in the past, and Holbert told her as she tried to end the relationship that if he couldn't have her, no one would, the prosecutor said.
During Holbert's plea last month, he said he didn't know what happened the night of the stabbing but he didn't deny he was responsible for the stabbing.
“This woman lives in fear,” Budelmann said. “He told her if she ever had him arrested, he would get out, find her and slit her throat.”
Holbert's assigned attorney, Kevin Taylor, said it was somewhat difficult to advocate a bright side of an attempted murder defendant but that Holbert, who has a tattoo of a cross on his right wrist, never denied what he did and expressed remorse.
He loved the victim and would take it back if he could, the attorney said.
“There's a part of him that isn't a beast ... without all that alcohol and all that abuse over the years,” Taylor said.
An order of protection was granted for the woman.
Staff writer Amaris Elliott-Engel can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 282 or at amaris.elliot-engel@lee.net
Holbert, 48, with a last known address of Apt. Z-288, 2 Schwartz Drive, and currently held in Cayuga County Jail, was sentenced for the felony of second-degree attempted murder of a 43-year-old woman he has been involved with for eight years. Following the Sept. 16, 2006 stabbing at the Standart Woods complex in Auburn, the woman required more than 10 surgeries because of an internal organ injury.
Holbert had told the victim he researched on the Internet that a stabbing, twisting wound to the abdomen would never heal and she would die from it, Chief Assistant District Attorney Jon Budelmann said.
Holbert's criminal history has always involved a girlfriend or the mother of his children, Leone said. Holbert was sentenced to one to four years in state prison for the 1989 convictions of third-degree burglary and first-degree reckless endangerment.
The stocky man with a shaved head struggled to find words at first when he addressed the court.
He said he knew he had done wrong. “I pray for her every night. I still love her. I'm just very sorry for what happened,” Holbert said.
The woman is “lucky to be alive,” Budelmann said.
Holbert had broken her ribs in the past, and Holbert told her as she tried to end the relationship that if he couldn't have her, no one would, the prosecutor said.
During Holbert's plea last month, he said he didn't know what happened the night of the stabbing but he didn't deny he was responsible for the stabbing.
“This woman lives in fear,” Budelmann said. “He told her if she ever had him arrested, he would get out, find her and slit her throat.”
Holbert's assigned attorney, Kevin Taylor, said it was somewhat difficult to advocate a bright side of an attempted murder defendant but that Holbert, who has a tattoo of a cross on his right wrist, never denied what he did and expressed remorse.
He loved the victim and would take it back if he could, the attorney said.
“There's a part of him that isn't a beast ... without all that alcohol and all that abuse over the years,” Taylor said.
An order of protection was granted for the woman.
Staff writer Amaris Elliott-Engel can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 282 or at amaris.elliot-engel@lee.net
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