CLEVELAND (AP) — An Ohio judge has handed down a life prison term for a doctor convicted of killing his wife with cyanide.
Relatives of the victim sobbed and held each other as 41-year-old Yazeed Essa (EE'-suh) was sentenced Tuesday in Cleveland. He could be eligible for parole after 20 years.
Essa was convicted last week of lacing his wife's calcium supplement with cyanide in 2005. Rosemarie Essa collapsed while driving and crashed her car into another vehicle near the couple's suburban Cleveland home.
Prosecutors claimed the former emergency room doctor at an Akron hospital killed his wife so he could be with a mistress.
Essa didn't testify at his trial or speak at sentencing. He wants a judge to declare him indigent so he can get a court-appointed attorney for appeal.
