NEW HAVEN — A New Haven man who police say threw acid at a woman who refused to marry him has been sentenced to six years in prison.
The New Haven Register reports 52-year-old Derek Rawls was sentenced Thursday after earlier pleading guilty to first-degree assault and violating a protective order.
The attack happened in January 2016. A police report said Rawls turned off the water in the woman’s apartment before he threw acid on her so she could not wash it off. She was treated at a hospital for third-degree burns on her face, neck and chest and was permanently scarred.
She said in a statement read in court that her scars “will remain a reminder of that terrible day forever.”
Rawls declined to make a statement during the hearing.
