A Spellbinding Story Begins With a Woman’s Confession, Ends With a Surprising Conviction.

Even after his family testified how they fear him, loathe him and have disowned him, Richard W. Hamlin, the former Sacramento prosecutor and defense attorney convicted of torturing his wife and abusing his children, shook his head in denial as he was sentenced Friday to life in prison. Hamlin was convicted in January of torturing his wife by punching her, stabbing her with writing pens, cutting her with a sword and pistol-whipping her over a nine-month period beginning in June of 2003 and ending Feb. 28, 2004, with his arrest in El Dorado County. In a bizarre scheme involving mind-control, satanic cults, child molestation and extortion, Hamlin turned his children against their mother telling them she was evil and that he had to beat the demons out of her.

An El Dorado Superior Court jury on Tuesday convicted Sacramento defense attorney Richard W. Hamlin of torture, the most serious of 18 felony counts of against him. But the jury delivered mixed verdicts on the remaining 17 counts of spousal abuse, assault and child endangerment.

The ex-prosecutor is charged with beating, terrorizing his wife.

Richard Hamlin pleads not guilty to six felony charges, including torture of his wife.