Crime & Safety
No Early Release from Prison for Potomac Doctor
A circuit court judge denied Zakaria Oweiss' request to be released from prison about two decades early.
A Potomac man sentenced a decade ago to 30 years in prison for killing his wife with a rubber mallet and who sought an early release from prison will not be released before the end of his sentence, The Washington Post reported.
Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Michael Pincus—who presided over Oweiss' trial a decade ago—denied Oweiss' request for an early release on Thursday, March 28.
Zakaria Oweiss had asked to be released about two decades early based on good behavior in prison, The Post reported.
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And, in court, Oweiss suggested "that he was in a hypoglycemic fog the morning his wife was slain and that he couldn’t explain how it happened." It was the first time that Oweiss indicated in court that he might have killed his wife, The Post added.
Oweiss, "a once-popular obstetrician, has been a model inmate among a 'larger and angrier population,' according to court filings. The 68-year-old writes medical columns for the prison newsletter, referees soccer matches and facilitates antiviolence discussion groups," The Post reported.
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Montgomery County prosecutors said, however, that Oweiss had not shown any remorse for the crime, and that he should serve the full length of the original sentence, The Post added.
Oweiss' wife, Marianne Oweiss, was found by county fire and rescue crews on Aug. 15, 2001, in a pool of blood in a basement office of the family's home on Kentsdale Drive, Potomac. "An autopsy revealed she had died of at least seven blows to the head," The Gazette reported.
Read the full story about the crime on The Gazette's website, the full story about Oweiss' request to be released early from prison on The Post's website, and the full story about the Circuit Court judge's denial of Oweiss' request on The Post's website.
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