NYC- The sicko tattoo artist who chained his naked wife to a spiral staircase, broke her nose and terrorized her with leopards was hit yesterday with a four-year prison term.
Anthony Barone, 35, pleaded guilty in Suffolk County Court to assault, imprisonment and weapons charges and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
But his estranged wife, Anastasia, 33, said four years is not enough, and that when he gets out, she's a dead woman.
"She fears for her life," said Anastasia Barone's lawyer, Kevin Palmeri of Garden City. "She believes he will come back and kill her. He will return to end her life."
Palmeri said he was annoyed the case did not go to trial.
While she was not at the court hearing yesterday, Anastasia Barone plans to say "how her life has been since she was attacked" at her husband's sentencing Jan. 30 in Riverhead, Palmeri said.
The Dix Hills dad also pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment for a Christmas Eve 2004 incident that saw one of his leopards attack his then-8-year-old son.
Suffolk County Court Judge Robert Doyle promised that he will hand Barone a four-year prison stint, though Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Donald Mates asked for five.
Immediately after Anthony Barone's May 29 arrest, his wife spoke with reporters, detailing the nightmare she suffered May 20 in her home's dungeonlike basement, which reeked of animal waste.
During the five-hour ordeal, the couple's 8-year-old son stood at his mom's side, desperately trying to help, she said.
"[Anthony] chained me up around my neck with a really thick chain," Anastasia Barone said. "He had a padlock around my neck."
When Barone was arrested, police recovered two 50-pound leopard cubs, and authorities later learned that he previously owned another leopard and a lynx.
The Barones lived with theirfour small children in a decrepit ranch-style home swarming with flies and tucked into a 1-acre compound off a wooded road.
It was there Barone stored his twisted collection: Among the more grisly items found in the house were a human fetus, a mummy head, a stuffed house cat and the skull and skin of a mastiff dog Anastasia Barone said her husband starved.
Anthony Barone also kept a score of stuffed and skinned wild animals, including a baboon, a zebra, a rhino, black bears, foxes, coyotes, lions and a hammerhead shark.
His wife fears that she may face the same fate.
"I want him to get as much time as possible, because when this guy gets out, he's basically not done with me yet," Anastasia Barone said in July. "He's got a vendetta against me."
