Prison for man who said God made him slash woman's throat

An Easton man who police say choked an Allentown woman with a lamp cord, slashed her throat and said God made him do it will spend up to a dozen years in state prison.

Dennis Rafael Calderon, 29, was sentenced Thursday to five to 10 years in state prison by Lehigh County Judge Robert L. Steinberg.

According to authorities:

Allentown police were dispatched around 6 a.m. Nov. 24 to a home in the 400 block of Green Street. When an officer arrived, he heard a woman screaming for help.

Two officers went to the back of the home, where they found Damaris Ortiz, the mother of two of Calderon's children, on the porch bleeding profusely from her face and neck. Ortiz had two cuts on her face and a 4-inch cut across her throat.

Ortiz told the officers Calderon slashed her. She said the last thing she remembered was Calderon choking her with a lamp cord and saying, "God commanded me to kill you."

Inside the home, officers discovered blood on a banister and blood drops leading to a second-floor bedroom. In the bedroom, police found an unidentified man holding down Calderon and an 8-inch kitchen knife nearby. Calderon was taken into custody.

When Calderon pleaded guilty in March to aggravated assault — the most serious charge he had faced – Chief Deputy District Attorney Charles Gallagher III said Ortiz has recovered. He said she needed four stitches in her forehead and nine stitches in her neck.

Calderon has several past convictions for weapon and drug offenses, court records show.

He has been in Lehigh County Prison under $500,000 bail since his arrest, according to court records.