‘Duck Sauce killer’ Glenn Hirsch beat and raped his wife for years in a ‘sadistic’ barrage of abuse, her attorney has claimed in a bid to get gun charges against her dropped.
Dorothy Hirsch, 62, was indicted on multiple charges of gun possession last month, but she claims she was under the threat of violence if she did not agree to her then-husband’s demands to store weapons and ammunition at her apartment.
She pleaded not guilty during her arraignment after officers found eight weapons wrapped in aluminum foil stashed inside a closet at her Jamaica home, in New York.
Her former husband, Glenn Hirsch, 51, killed himself last month ahead of a court hearing appearance after being bailed out of jail on a $500,000 bond.
He was accused of murdering Zhiwen Yan, a father-of-three, who he allegedly shot in the chest while Yan was fulfilling deliveries for a Chinese restaurant on his scooter in Forest Hills.
But Hirsch was physically and emotionally abusive to his wife for decades and wouldn’t have dared stop him leaving firearms at her home, her attorney claims in documents seen by DailyMail.com.
Dorothy Hirsch, 62, was indicted on multiple weapons charges last month after cops discovered eight guns in her closet, but her lawyer argues she was forced to store them
A letter from lawyer Mark Bederow sees him explaining the domestic abuse of Dorothy Hirsch by ‘Duck Sauce Killer’ Glenn Hirsch, and how she came to have weapons stored at her home
Her husband Glenn, 51, committed suicide after being charged with the murder of a Chinese delivery driver. Hirsch attempted to exonerate his wife in a suicide note he sent to the District Attorney’s office, judges and lawyers
In a bid to have her charges dropped, her lawyer has now provided a stash of once sealed court documents detailing the violence she endured.
The violence, which her lawyer claims, means she would have been unable to stop Glenn Hirsch from storing guns and weaponry in her Queens apartment and should not be charged with charges of gun possession.
Bederow wrote: ‘Glenn’s acts of brutality against Dorothy (before and during their marriage) included sadistic and violent sexual abuse, striking, cutting and menacing her with weapons, punching her, slapping her, threatening to kill her, extortion and contempt.’
But prosecutors already knew about the history of abuse she endured during her arrest.
The same day his wife was hit with gun charges, a judge in Hirsch’s case was made aware of his past domestic violence arrests.
Accompanying the letter was 10 sealed arrests that between 1991 and 2012, mostly involving his wife as the victim
Hirsch from Jamaica, in Queens, killed himself earlier this month ahead of a court hearing appearance after being bailed out of jail on a $500,000 bond
Hirsch, who was believed to have had several run-ins with the restaurant over duck sauce and other condiments, is accused of shooting Yan before fleeing the scene on April 30.
Glenn Hirsch attempted to prove his wife’s innocence from beyond the grave, trying to exonerate her in a six-page suicide note.
In his ‘dying declaration’ Hirsch said: ‘I want to take full responsibility for the eight guns recovered from a closet in Dorothy’s apartment.
‘I acquired these firearms many years ago and they remained undisturbed in an outside storage facility shared with previous roommates. However a couple of years ago when my wife purchased her new cooperative apartment.
‘I decided to close the storage unit. It was at that time I moved those items into my wife’s apartment and placed them inside a hallway storage closet along with numerous other unopened bags and boxes…
‘She had absolutely no part in obtaining the firearms nor did she have any knowledge they were inside of her residence.’
Bederow claims that Hirsch’s ‘unique manner of hoarding’ in his own home is identical to the way the guns were stored in Dorothy’s apartment
Packets full of ammunition are seen in bags of evidence gathered at Dorothy Hirsch’s home
Eight guns were found inside of Dorothy Hirsch Jamaica apartment, inside a closet that she allowed her husband to use
Prosecutors are refusing to use his suicided note which exonerates his wife, pictured with attorney Mark Bederow, into their submissions to a grand jury
He wrote the words to his lawyers, prosecutors and those involved in the case in the lengthy note which was also left in his apartment by cops who discovered him.
Prosecutors refused to put his suicide note in front of a grand jury who are in charge of indicting the nurse at Queen Supreme Court.
While searching Hirsch’s apartment where he died, his wife’s legal team found three gun cases which matched some of the guns found in her closet.
They also discovered boxes of ammunition, and another fully loaded gun, which was missed by NYPD officers when they first searched the property.
Bederow has accused the District Attorney’s office of ‘indicting before investigating’ and ‘trying to fit a square peg into a round hole’.
Police found eight guns as they search Dorothy Hirsch’s home. The weapons were stored in a closet wrapped in bags, with one wrapped in tinfoil.
Prosecutors ‘knew that Dorothy was a longtime victim of Glenn’s domestic violence’ before her arrest Bederow explained in a two-page letter to Assistant District Attorney Thomas Salmon on Friday.
Dorothy’s lawyers claim that she unknowingly allowed her husband to store his eight guns inside of her closet. The couple were not living together at the time of the alleged murder
The notorious ‘Duck Sauce Killer’ ranted in a long-winded suicide note complaining about how the NYPD and other officials treated him and insisting his innocence
Accompanying the letter was 10 sealed arrests that between 1991 and 2012, mostly involving his wife as the victim.
The abuse began decades earlier in 1995 before the couple were even married.
Glenn Hirsch was accused of holding Dorothy captive in a motel room before stripping and pistol-whipping her.
He left her handcuffed, gagged and blindfolded while he repeatedly raped and sodomized her. He then cut her as he ran a knife over her stomach, hit her with a ruler, and punched her.
12 years later, Glenn Hirsch continued his violence against his wife, this time hitting her with a rolled-up towel, before punching and scratching her and the placing a pillow over her face to silence her screens.
He threatened to killer her and her family if she went to the police.
On that occasion police found a gun, hundreds of bullets, a knife and even a police shield in his bedroom.
Zhiwen Yan, 45, pictured with his wife in what appears to be a wedding photo. Yan, who worked as a Chinese food delivery man, 45, was shot dead in New York City: The shooter was a disgruntled customer who had ‘multiple’ disputes with the restaurant over his orders and twice threatened workers with a gun
Bederow is now demanding the DA’s office turn over details from any of Glenn Hirsch’s previously unsealed arrests that would help to bolster his wife’s defense.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, lawyer Bederow said: ‘They have charged her first and look for evidence later.
‘I don’t think it could be any more obvious after what happened today that she is being punished for the alleged sins of her late husband. I think it’s disgraceful.
‘I’m disappointed that she was charged in the first place.’
Bederow argues that the ‘evidence of Glenn’s years-long abuse of Dorothy was favorable to her having the charges dropped because it offers an obvious explanation as to why she wouldn’t question Glenn Hirsch about his behavior and his property, and why she wouldn’t inspect his possessions.
‘That evidence obviously is relevant to her defense that she didn’t know the guns were in HIS closet because she wouldn’t dare question him or snoop through the junk he stored.
‘It is regrettable that the DA would simply disregard the domestic violence history and refuse to disclose favorable evidence by coldly decreeing that it’s not relevant,’ he added.
‘We are entitled to evidence they knew about before they chose to indict Dorothy for possessing what obviously were Glenn Hirsch’s guns,’ Bederow said in a statement.
Sources previously claimed that Glenn Hirsch’s entire refrigerator was packed with sweet and sour duck sauce, with the rest of the apartment being completely filled with other junk.
Hirsch also declared his innocence in the murder of Yan: ‘I did not shoot Mr. Yan and I am not responsible for his death.’
He also demanded Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz ‘conduct a proper investigation’ into Yan’s April 30 death.
Hirsch writes: ‘My indictment and subsequent arrest in connection with this matter is one of the most obscene and egregious cases of defamation and wrongful arrest in recent memory.
‘It is a textbook case of sloppy police work, confirmation bias, political pressure, and rush to judgment.’
He also raged at the NYPD releasing photos of the inside of his fridge in an attempt ‘to portray me as someone who is condiment obsessed.
Dorothy Hirsch, a nurse, was today supported by several friends and family, as her lawyers claim that she would not have known about the weapons.
Hirsch, pictured at Queen’s supreme court, was ordered to wear an ankle bracelet monitoring him and banned from leaving his neighborhood in Jamaica, Queens, before his death
Mourners left flowers, candles, photos, and drawings at the scene at the Great Wall Chinese food restaurant in Forest Hills for murdered delivery man Zhiwen Yan
Sources previously claimed that his entire refrigerator, pictured, was packed with sweet and sour duck sauce, with the rest of the apartment being completely filled with other junk
The closet at Dorothy Hirsch’s home (pictured above). Her lawyer claims that the contents of the closet that authorities searched during the June raid matches her husband’s ‘unique’ hoarding style
Entire rooms were filled with trash bags, plastic boxes of documents, old newspapers, CDs and a globe. It is currently not known what the boxes and bags are filled with. The photographs were released as part of Hirsch’s wife’s defense that she could not have known about the eight firearms Hirsch kept in her home. The couple had lived separately for years but she allowed her estranged husband to use a closet in her home, where the guns were found
At Glenn Hirsch’s Briarwood home, cops discovered his refrigerator packed with sweet and sour duck sauce.
‘His whole refrigerator was filled with duck sauce and other condiments,’ a police source explained.
‘He’s a hoarder. And when you open the refrigerator, it’s like, condiments – there’s duck sauce, soy sauce, ketchup.’
The source suggested the piles of condiments at his apartment on 141st Street were all a part of what was going on in Hirsch’s brain that may have lead him to kill.
‘I guess in some pathology people like that take that stuff very seriously – you didn’t give him enough duck sauce,’ they said.
In a statement Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said: ‘The loss of a human life is always tragic.
‘Obviously, we would have preferred to try Mr. Glenn Hirsch for the calculated murder of Mr. Zhiwen Yan in a court of law, but this is no longer an option.
‘We once again express our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Zhiwen Yan, who continue to grieve his tragic and senseless loss.’
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