Up to 25 years for Hazel Park man in attack on wife
Calling a Hazel Park man “evil,” a judge on Wednesday sentenced him to 25 years in prison for shooting and torturing his wife and then dumping her beaten and bound body in a Detroit field.
Radu Vasile Muntean, 35, was found guilty of assault with intent to do great bodily harm, unlawful imprisonment, torture, felony firearms and domestic violence in the March incident.
Wayne Circuit Judge Craig Strong, in giving out his punishment, told Muntean: “You are an evil, evil person.”
Strong added he couldn’t comprehend how Muntean would commit such an act, especially to the mother of their 2 1/2 year-old-girl.
Before sentencing, Muntean apologized to his wife, Natalia, saying “I’d like to ask for forgiveness from my wife. I know I treated her bad.”
Muntean received 10-15 years for the assault conviction, two years for felony firearm, one year for domestic violence and 2-25 years for torturing his wife. The sentences will run concurrent. Muntean will receive 34 days credit for time already served in jail.
He had faced up to life in prison until a jury acquitted him of assault with intent to murder and and assault with a dangerous weapon.
Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor Tara Mathena asked for the maximum sentence saying Muntean tortured his wife in his vehicle for 17 hours and “beat her about the head. The woman also was shot.
“The defendant blamed Ms. Muntean for what happened to her and took no responsibility,” Mathena said.
Radu Muntean’s defense attorney, David Putrycus, called the crime “a tragedy” for Muntean’s wife and their child.
Natalia Muntean did not speak at the sentencing hearing. She sat in the courtroom with other family members.
An undercover Grosse Pointe Park police officer found Muntean’s wife in his Dodge Ram pickup with him nearby around 2:43 p.m. March 23 in a field near Van Dyke and French.
Natalia Muntean was handcuffed, shot in both legs, bleeding in the face and naked.
Officer Dan Kolar, who is part of an auto theft unit, said while on routine patrol he stumbled upon Radu Muntean with his truck backed up to a vacant lot.
Kolar testified before Strong that when he stopped to investigate, Radu Muntean approached him with a gas can and asked him to take him to get some gas. Kolar said Radu Muntean told him he was a police officer and even flashed an official-looking police badge. Kolar said Muntean told him he was in an abandoned lot with overgrown weeds to pick up his girlfriend, who had been beaten up.
Kolar said he investigated further because “something wasn’t lining up” and found the wife in her husband’s pickup.
“I saw a badly beaten (woman) in a blanket,” Kolar said during the trial last month. “She had cuts on her hand. I asked if she was OK. She was saying something incoherent. She looked straight ahead. She never looked at me.”
Natalia Muntean testified she was shot in the leg as she and her husband drove down Interstate 75 in Detroit. She and her husband allegedly had argued earlier.
She also called the incident a “big misunderstanding” and said she initially didn’t want to press charges.
Natalia Muntean was asked by Putrycus about a so-called suicide pact. She agreed that in earlier statements she said her husband had discussed committing suicide together if they could not work out their marital problems.
Asked why she didn’t use her cellphone to call for help before getting shot, Natalia Muntean said she “couldn’t think clearly.” She also told jurors she feared her husband.
“I didn’t want to make him mad,” she said. “I was just trying to be obedient.”
bwilliams@detroitnews.com
(313) 222-2027