CHICAGO, June 21 (UPI) -- A jury in Chicago denied damages to a woman who said her former husband turned her into a sex slave and forced her to have an abortion.
The federal lawsuit, filed several years ago, was decided Thursday after less than 5 hours of deliberation, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Kimberley O'Brien, 52, the plaintiff, showed little emotion as the jury ruled against her.
"We're disappointed with the verdict," her lawyer, Dean Dickie, said. "This has been a very difficult ordeal for her."
O'Brien said her husband, Kenneth Anderson, 57, trapped her in an abusive relationship that included making her walk around their home wearing nothing but high heels. She said she was forced to sleep on the floor beside her husband's bed and address him as master.
Anderson told her to have an abortion before they were married, she said.
Anderson's lawyers said O'Brien was after her ex-husband's money. They said she was not held prisoner and was often alone when her husband was out of town or she was staying in a condo she owned in Chicago.
Anderson testified his wife got the abortion on her own initiative and told him she had had a miscarriage.
"This is not a vulnerable woman under anyone's control, locked up in some dungeon," Anderson's lawyer, Charles Cole, said. "This story just doesn't hold water."
