The woman testified at her husband, Don Finney's trial Tuesday. Finney was charged with sexual assault and kidnapping for the incident.
TRENTON - Locked in her own home and separated from three of her children - that was how a Trenton woman said her story of assault at the hands of her husband began nearly three years ago.
The woman testified in court Tuesday, describing the three days when she said she was held captive and raped by her husband.
Her husband, Don Finney, is on this week after he was charged with kidnapping sexual assault, making terroristic threats and endangering the welfare of children for an incident in late August and early September of 2013.
His wife, whose name is being withheld because she's the victim in a sexual assault case, said Tuesday that it started on August 31 of that year.
She claims her husband and she got into an argument in their house on the 100 block of Vine Street and he threw her on the ground and choked her.
"My ears were ringing," the woman said. When she got up Finney ordered her and three of their children upstairs. Once upstairs he took her key that led outside and her phone, she said, adding that the front door locked from the inside.
Her three children - who are not Finney's children - went to another room while Finney locked his wife and their infant son in a bedroom, she said. In the bedroom Finney took their son from her arms and threw him on the bed.
The child fell off and Finney put his son back on the bed before he continued to beat his wife, she said.
He threatened to kill her, himself and the children before he raped her on the bed, the woman said.
"I felt like I was going to die... I was just crying inside," she said.
After the ordeal, Finney fell asleep.
The woman told the courtroom that she and her children spent much of the next day locked inside the house until Finney took them outside to a liquor store to buy beer.
Assistant Prosecutor Michael Mennuti asked the woman why she didn't run once they were outside. She said she didn't want to "alert" Finney or prompt him to escape.
It wasn't until the third day that the woman said she was able to find her phone and call her mother, who called the police.
When officers arrived at the house, Finney unlocked the door and the woman answered it, at first unsure of whether to tell police the whole story.
"I was puzzled... Do I want to tell what happen and lose the one I love?" The woman said. She eventually recalled the events of the past three days and officers arrested Finney immediately after, she said.
At the hospital, the woman said she told nurses and doctors what had happened and, once she was released, immediately went to the police with her story.
Tom Belsky, a defense attorney representing Finney, called into question the woman's relationship with Finney and his relationship with her children. Belsky said that the woman had described a different relationship in an earlier testimony.
Before, the woman had said Finney treated her children unfairly compared to his own, Belsky claimed - something that he said differed slightly from how the woman described the relationship Tuesday.
The woman finished her testimony Tuesday and the trial is expected to resume Wednesday.
Anna Merriman may be reached at amerriman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @anna_merriman Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.