Glenn Marcus is a tall, square-shouldered man with dark grey hair and a spreading bald spot. He stood quietly in Brooklyn federal court Friday afternoon, his hands folded lightly behind his back, while the judge sentenced him for brutalizing a younger woman named Jodi in a sado-masochistic relationship gone wrong.

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n Friday, the sentencing judge cited two specific violent incidents that Jodi had tried to escape. In one, Marcus had strapped her to a wall after she said she wanted to leave. In another, he suspended her in a basement and slammed her head against a wall. At other times, the defendant tried to sew Jodi’s vagina closed, pierced her wrists with needles and burned her feet.

“This case has had a compelling hold on me from the day it walked into my office,” defense attorney Maurice Sercarz told the court. “You can strip away the bizarre sexual content … and put it aside. For me it has really all been about personal responsibility and the degree to which the law will intrude on personal relationships.