‘Torturous acts’ cited in court

Man waterboarded victim, prosecutor says

A woman endured a 90-minute ordeal at the hands of her boyfriend that included “torturous acts of violence that the United Nations has outlawed,” according to Hollywood police and prosecutors.

Freddy Alberto Elias is accused of attempted murder and other charges stemming from the incident. “He waterboarded this woman, he branded her with a fork,” Assistant State Attorney Eric Linder told judge Claudia Robinson during a first-appearance court hearing for Elias, 27.

The Sun Sentinel isn’t naming the woman because she is an alleged victim of domestic violence. According to the redacted Hollywood arrest affidavit filed in the case, the woman was at her home with a male friend shortly before 3 a.m. Sunday when Elias knocked at the back door. The male friend quickly left through the front door. Elias suspected someone else had been there and began to argue with his girlfriend.

As the argument intensified, Elias threw the woman’s phone against a glass wall frame, shattering it; grabbed her neck and pushed her to the ground, the affidavit said. He then “shoved a sock into the victim’s mouth, and forced it down her throat causing her to choke,” the document said. The woman told police Elias choked her until she lost consciousness.

After that, according to police, Elias dragged the woman into the shower, held a towel over her face so she couldn’t breathe, filled a pot with water and poured it over her face while he “tightly held the towel in place.” He repeated this about four times, the affidavit said.

According to the report, he also threatened to kill her.

The woman eventually broke free and got outside, screaming until a neighbor gave her a cellphone to call for help.

Elias, a 2007 graduate of Fort Lauderdale High School and an aspiring refrigerator repairman, is facing charges of attempted murder, false imprisonment, aggravated battery and domestic battery.

He is being held without bond at Broward’s Main Jail.

Elias