The victim of a suburban Boca Raton rapist will live with the devastation of the night he held her captive for the rest of her life, she told a judge on Monday, June 10.
And, now, so will he.
Judge Daliah Weiss sentenced Tzvi Allswang, who raped, beat and tortured his therapist for 15 hours after she came to his house for a session in July 2022, to life in prison after hearing from the victim as well as her fiancée and family, who told how their lives had been irretrievably derailed by the attack he carefully planned.
More:Deputies did nothing as woman was raped for hours near Boca. When she screamed, they debated why
The therapist, who had been drawn to a career that would allow her to help others, told how now she is scared to be left alone. While the physical scars of Allswang's relentless attack had eventually faded, she said, emotional devastation from the night is part of her now. She still hopes to help others, she said.
"I am not just a victim, but a survivor," she said. The horror she endured has left her feeling isolated, though.
"I struggle with the feeling of being trapped and helpless behind invisible walls," she said, "while the world carries on around me."
"Every day since that night has been a struggle," her fiancée said.
Sheriff's deputies did nothing for six hours
She and the therapist's parents called Allswang, 22, a "monster" as they described the terror they all still relive daily, as they tried fruitlessly for hours to find her and then once they did, to persuade sheriff's deputies to rescue her.
During her night of terror, Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputies ignored evidence for six hours that she was in danger and left her to be tortured, raped and terrorized, a Palm Beach Post investigation found.
They failed to run routine checks that would have revealed Allswang’s previous violent sexual assault conviction. They ignored pertinent facts shared by people who knew the woman. They overlooked repeated clues that the therapist was inside the house against her will.
More:When can police enter a home without a warrant? Did deputies need one for rape near Boca?
Her ordeal ended only after deputies heard her scream and eventually broke into the home to find him holding a knife to her throat. He did not drop the knife until a deputy shot him, the bullet striking his forehead. He was hospitalized for four days before he was booked into the Palm Beach County Jail. He has remained in jail without bail.
Mother of victim: 'Unfortunately, he did not die right on the spot'
He pleaded guilty to kidnapping, attempted murder and multiple sexual assault charges in March, leaving his sentence to the discretion of the judge.
On Monday, the therapist's mother recounted how over and over, Allswang told her daughter that he would kill her and then let police shoot him.
"Ultimately the police did shoot him," the therapist's mother noted, and turned to face Allswang. "Unfortunately he did not die on the spot."
Prosecutor Alexa Ruggiero pointed to the failures of people who could have protected the victim from Allswang, who was 20 when he put his plan to kidnap and kill his therapist into action.
She pointed to his family, who ignored signs that he was dangerous and to the court system that gave him a sentence of probation following his first rape conviction two years earlier. She pointed to the therapist's employer who, knowing the client's history of sexual violence, sent her to the house alone and unprepared, and she pointed to the deputies, who found the therapist's car in front of the Allswang home and at one point, left.
When the therapist heard officers outside, Ruggiero told the judge, "she thought for one brief moment she was going to be free."
Empowered and enabled by all of those people, Ruggiero repeated, Allswang "delighted" in each moment of the pain and degradation he inflicted on the therapist. She listed the methodical steps he took to plan the attack, from rescheduling the appointment to when his family would not be home, to buying the black tablecloths he would use to tape over the windows when he excused himself during their session.
It was time, Ruggiero told Weiss, to hold Allswang accountable.
Weiss noted factors she called mitigating — Allswang's youth, findings presented by the defense that Allswang had "poor impulse control" as a result of cysts on his frontal lobes, diagnoses of attention deficit disorder and autism, and the trauma of his mother's death during his childhood.
Weiss said the measures he took to execute his plan and maximize the time he would have to torture his victim were not lost on her. She cited the texts he sent to her family to allay their concerns, the duct tape and foil he wrapped around her phone to make it unreachable and how he moved the appointment to the Jewish sabbath when his family would not call.
Attorney Jacob Cohen said that Allswang, who declined to address the court or his victim, had expressed "profuse apologies."
"There are circ*mstances," Weiss said, "when sorry just isn't enough."
Antigone Barton is an investigative reporter at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at avbarton@pbpost.com.
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, the Palm Beach County Victim Services andRapeCrisis Center can help. Reach their helpline at 561-833-7273, or toll-free at 866-891-7273.
