BOERNE, Texas, April 6 (UPI) -- A Texas father was sentenced to four years in prison for injury to a child for whipping, pinching and kicking his duct tape-bound 10-year-old son.
David W. Dill, 49, of Kerrville, is a fundamentalist Christian who said his abuse was discipline consistent with Old Testament teachings, the San Antonio Express-News reported.
A judge sentenced Dill Monday on the jury's January conviction, the newspaper reported.
"Up until the jury's verdict, I thought I was innocent. I thought what I did was OK ... based on the Bible," Dill testified Monday, saying that he agreed with the verdict.
Dill's defense lawyer, Stephen Harpold, requested probation, saying Dill's wife divorced him last month and Child Protective Services seeks to terminate Dill's parental rights to his three minor children.
"This is not discipline. It's a sick, violent assault. The fact that it was committed by a father doesn't make it better. It makes it worse," prosecutor Lucy Wilke said, adding that the Dill had meted out such discipline more than once, and that he still believes in his original Old Testament view of discipline.
"What I have a really hard time getting my hands around is how a person of your intellect could ever justify this kind of discipline with a child," Texas Distict Judge Keith Williams said.
