SACRAMENTO—A U.S. District Judge sentenced Matthew Muller, an ex- lawyer to 40 years in prison on charges of kidnapping Denise Huskins on Thursday, March 16.  Judge Troy Nunley condemned the act calling it a “heinous, atrocious, horrible crime.”

Officials from the Vallejo Police Department previously dismissed the charges against Muller calling them ‘rumors and hoax.”

Muller, 39, was sentenced to 40 years in prison after the victim Denise Huskins testified against him in court saying that Muller put her through both physical, and psychological trauma. On March 23, 2015, at 3 a.m. Muller broke into Aaron Quinn’s home where he was with his girlfriend, Denise Huskins. According to reports, Muller bound and drugged the couple, and later kidnapped Denise, leaving Quinn behind. He placed Huskins in the trunk of his car and drove to a house in South Lake Tahoe where he kept her for two days.

Huskins alleged that Muller sexually assaulted her twice through the duration of her kidnapping. Muller has not been charged with sexual assault.

“You treated me like an object, a toy, an animal,” Huskins told the court. She also told the court how deeply disturbed she has been after the event. “I still have nightmares every night. Sleep is not rest for me. It is a trigger,” she said.

Muller, who pleaded guilty last year told the court that the “pain and horror” caused by him makes him “sick with shame.” Muller’s lawyer, defense attorney Thomas Johnson tried to reduce Muller’s sentence to 30 years. Johnson told the court that Muller was diagnosed with manic depression and that proper treatments could cure him.

Prosecutors indicated that Muller made use of gadgets such as drones to stalk the couple before breaking into their home. They alleged that he played a tape with multiple voices during the kidnapping in order to mislead the police into thinking that the crime was committed by a group of people.