L. Pugach, subject of 'Crazy Love'

In an April 25, 1997, photo, Burt Pugach laughs with his wife, Linda, in the hallway of the Queens Criminal Court in New York, where Pugach was on trial for threatening another, younger woman, after she left him.
In an April 25, 1997, photo, Burt Pugach laughs with his wife, Linda, in the hallway of the Queens Criminal Court in New York, where Pugach was on trial for threatening another, younger woman, after she left him. (EMILE WAMSTEKER / Associated Press, file)
In an April 25, 1997, photo, Burt Pugach laughs with his wife, Linda, in the hallway of the Queens Criminal Court in New York, where Pugach was on trial for threatening another, younger woman, after she left him.GALLERY: In an April 25, 1997, photo, Burt Pugach laughs with his… (EMILE WAMSTEKER…)
By Ula Ilnytzky, Associated Press
Posted: January 25, 2013

NEW YORK - Linda Pugach, 75, who was blinded in 1959 when her lover hired hit men to throw lye in her face - and became a media sensation after later marrying him - died Tuesday of heart failure at a hospital in Queens.

The infamous New York City crime was detailed in the 2007 documentary Crazy Love.

Her husband, Burton Pugach, spent 14 years in prison for hiring the thugs to attack his then-girlfriend Linda Riss after she spurned him. He was married at the time, and the heinous attack became an instant tabloid sensation.

After his release, Pugach divorced his first wife and persuaded Ms. Riss to marry him in 1974. He proposed to her on live television.

"This was a very fairy tale romance," a sobbing Burton Pugach said Thursday.

After the release of Crazy Love, Pugach praised filmmaker Dan Klores for revealing a story that for the first time "has colors - it was no longer black and white."

Two decades after his release from prison, Pugach was accused in another case with chilling similarities but acquitted of the charges in 1997. He had been accused of threatening and harassing another lover after she tried to end their five-year affair. That woman testified that he threatened to make it "1959 all over again."

He said in an interview at the time: "Haven't you ever threatened to kill your husband? Did you mean it? Of course not. . . . This has been blown out of proportion like I've never seen."

Ms. Pugach testified at that trial, describing her husband as a good man. Under cross-examination by Pugach, a disbarred lawyer who defended himself, she said she couldn't have sex with him after undergoing heart surgery in 1990.

"He was a naughty little boy, and he was caught," she said as she left the courtroom on his arm. She said he was an adulterer, not a criminal.

Ms. Pugach was being laid to rest in a crypt in Paramus, N.J., on Thursday.

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