Metro

Conn. man gets 70 years for kidnapping ex-wife

HARTFORD, Conn. — A former advertising executive has been sentenced to 70 years in prison for kidnapping his ex-wife, holding her hostage for nearly a dozen hours and burning down the Connecticut home they once shared in 2009.

Sixty-two-year-old Richard Shenkman was sentenced Wednesday in Hartford Superior Court. A jury convicted him in October of 10 charges including kidnapping, arson, assault and threatening.

Shenkman abducted his ex-wife, Nancy Tyler, from downtown Hartford and forced her at gunpoint to drive to the home in South Windsor. The two were in the middle of divorce-related court hearings.

Tyler testified that Shenkman threatened to kill her, fired a gun near her head and threatened to blow up the house. She escaped unharmed. He was arrested after running out of the burning house.