Lisa Steinberg was adopted by a defense attorney Joel Steinberg and his partner Nussbaum. Lisa Steinberg received severe injuries when Steinberg, under the influence of cocaine, hit her on the head due to which she died. Steinberg was a criminal attorney and he was given the assignment of finding a suitable couple who wants to adopt a child. Instead of finding appropriate parents for the child, he himself decided to adopt her and took her to his home where she lived with his partner Hedda Nussbaum and he never went through the legal procedure required for the adoption of a child. Steinberg was arrested on the charges of killing the child. He was alleged with torturing the six years old girl leading to severe injuries on her head. The injuries proved fatal and the girl died in the hospital in 1987 when she was removed from life support. Steinberg had adopted another male child as well who was of eighteen months when Lisa died. The boy and Nussbaum were found brutally injured by the torture of Steinberg. Although Nussbaum was alleged with criminal negligence yet she was not prosecuted when she assisted the investigation and gave her testimony against Steinberg. The defense lawyer of Steinberg suggested that the injuries to Nussbaum were the result of “sadism” as well as “masochism” of the couple. He suggested that the injuries to Nussbaum were consensual because she tolerated the torture showing she had the psychological disorder of Battered Woman’s Syndrome. Then Steinberg was convicted of first degree manslaughter and sentenced to 8 to 25 years in jail for killing the six years old girl. Most probably he adopted the children to satisfy his abnormally sadist instinct which is a psychological disorder under which a patient feels intense desire to give physical torture to some other person.
Lisa Steinberg
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