Fiend Gets 10 Years For Sick Syringe Stab

SEPTEMBER 8--The 53-year-old fiend who jabbed a woman in the rear end with a semen-filled syringe has been sentenced to a decade in state prison following his guilty plea to assault charges.

A Maryland Circuit Court judge yesterday sentenced Thomas Stemen in connection with his attack last year on a female shopper at a grocery store in Churchton, a community 40 miles outside Baltimore.

Stemen, who in June pleaded guilty to felony and misdemeanor assault counts, was sentenced to 25 years on the top count, but a judge suspended all but 10 years of that penalty.

Pictured at right, Stemen has been locked up in the Anne Arundel county jail since his arrest last February. While court records list Stemen’s residence as a private home in Toledo, Ohio, he has resided in the Churchton area in recent years.

As captured by surveillance cameras at the Christopher's Fine Foods market, Stemen snuck up from behind on Katie Peters as she was returning a shopping cart (as seen above). He then jabbed her in the buttocks with a syringe, causing Peters to recoil in pain.

Peters told police that after being stuck with the needle, she asked Stemen if he had touched her with a lit cigarette. He replied, “Yeah, it felt like a bee sting, didn’t it?” Peters recalled.

A police review of security footage showed that Stemen unsuccessfully tried to stab two other female shoppers in the store's parking lot.

When Stemen was identified days after the attack and confronted by police, he was in possession of one syringe, while a second needle was found in his vehicle. Lab tests subsequently determined that both syringes contained semen.