A 44-year-old man from Michigan is expected to spend his life in prison due to repeatedly abusing and torturing his wife prior to her suspicious death in 2021. He attempted to justify his actions by claiming she had willingly signed a “waiver consent form” granting him permission to discipline her in any manner he deemed necessary.

On Wednesday, Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina sentenced Christopher Palazzolo to serve a term of 40 to 80 years in a state correctional facility for the cruelty he inflicted upon his wife, Elise Palazzolo, in the months leading up to her demise. He faced a possible maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Judge Aquilina issued the sentence following a July jury trial where deliberations took just over an hour to convict Christopher Palazzolo of torture and domestic violence, court records show. The judge credited him with 93 days already served.

Although Elise Palazzolo died from a prescription drug overdose in their Williamston apartment, prosecutors argued that the physical and emotional abuse inflicted by her husband significantly contributed to her death.

“You knew she took those drugs,” Aquilina stated during Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, as reported by local news radio station WHMI. “As a husband, you have an elevated duty to protect her, help her, and call 911, yet you did nothing. If 911 wasn’t an option for you, you could’ve contacted her family. The community would have supported you. A simple phone call for advice could’ve saved her. But you chose to do nothing and let her die slowly.”

When Christopher Palazzolo’s wife passed away in May 2021, authorities noted that she had endured numerous physical injuries at different healing stages, indicative of continual physical abuse, according to the Lansing State Journal reported. Her body was covered in bruises and scars, some of which prosecutors attributed to being whipped with a metal hanger and shot with an Airsoft gun.

Christopher Palazzolo reportedly admitted to authorities that he was responsible for the physical abuse his wife suffered, but justified that abuse by claiming his wife had written and signed a “waiver consent form” permitting him to physically punish her when she lied. He even provided photographs of Elise Palazzolo composing the document, which purportedly allowed Christopher Palazzolo to choke her and cut her with a knife.

A medical examiner could not determine Elise Palazzolo’s manner of death, but prosecutors pushed back on the “waiver” defense, asserting that even if such a document were legal — which is highly unlikely — it was still entirely “unreasonable” to follow. They further told the court it would be unlikely Christopher Palazzolo would have “gone along with the idea if he wasn’t the type of person who engaged in the crimes of domestic violence and torture on her.”