Ex-Girlfriend Confronts Restaurateur For Attempts To Induce Miscarriage

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A former Southland restaurateur was sentenced Friday to nine years in prison for trying to kill his then-girlfriend's unborn baby -- which she ultimately miscarried -- by giving her a drug often used to terminate pregnancies.

Prosecutors say Florida resident Joshua Woodward, 43, who co-owned the former Table 8 restaurant in Los Angeles -- tried to induce his girlfriend to have a miscarriage via the use of misoprostol, a powdery drug whose uses include inducing labor and terminating early stage pregnancies.

According to prosecutors, Woodward unsuccessfully pleaded with girlfriend Gail Greaves to have an abortion, but when she refused, he administered the drug three times between Sept. and Oct. 2009 in an effort to induce a miscarriage.

On a fourth occasion, Woodward - who had not yet realized Greaves had already miscarried - caught by police trying to dispose of a baggie containing the drug, according to prosecutors.

In an emotional exchange in court Friday, Greaves called Woodward "disgusting".

"Do you not understand that you are a textbook psychopath?" she asked. "Do you really not understand what you've done to me?"

Woodward had also offered the woman "financial incentives to have an abortion" and then went behind closed doors "looking for evil ways" to eliminate the fetus, according to Deputy District Attorney Habib Balian.

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