Towson Man Sentenced to Five Years for Hours-Long Assault of Woman He Met on Dating App
Judge Tells Defendant He Wants Him to Experience the ‘Terror’ He Inflicted on Victim
TOWSON— A Towson man who subjected a woman he met on a dating app to a violent, hours-long assault inside his home was sentenced Monday to five years in prison, with a Baltimore County judge telling him he deserved to experience some of the terror he inflicted on his victim.
Samuel Logue, 28, pleaded guilty in June to first-degree assault and fourth-degree sex offense in connection with the Oct. 27, 2024, attack.
According to the victim, the assault lasted from approximately 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. She said Logue sexually assaulted her, gouged her eyes with his thumbs, punched her repeatedly and choked her multiple times, causing her to lose consciousness and vomit.
Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge Mickey Norman sentenced Logue to 25 years in prison, suspending all but five years. Logue will receive credit for the approximately 21 months he has already served in the Baltimore County Detention Center.
He also was ordered to serve four years of supervised probation after his release, complete mental health treatment, abstain from drugs and alcohol, and register as a Tier I sex offender for 15 years.
The State had sought a sentence of eight years in prison. The defense had argued for a sentence that required no additional incarceration. State sentencing guidelines are three to eight years.
Before imposing the sentence, Norman said Logue knew his mental illness was aggravated by alcohol and drugs but continued using them anyway.
"Up until now, the defendant has never truly suffered the consequences of his self-indulgent choice of using drugs and alcohol," Norman said.
After announcing the sentence, the judge said he wanted Logue to be "scared to death" when he enters the state prison system.
"I want you to experience the kind of terror that you imposed on [the victim]," Norman said, adding that the county detention center where Logue has spent the past 21 months is a "Taj Mahal" compared to prison.
Hours of violence
According to prosecutors, Logue met the woman on the dating app Hinge. The two first met in person at her home in northern Virginia. The following day, they travelled to Logue's home on Prospect Circle in the Towson Estates neighborhood with the intention of attending a football game.
The woman told police Logue punched her, gouged her eyes, choked her and forced his fingers down her throat. He also forcibly performed a sex act on her and sexually assaulted her with his fingers while repeatedly threatening to kill her, she said.
At one point, prosecutors said, Logue straddled the woman, shoved the barrel of what appeared to be an assault rifle into her mouth and told her, "I could shoot you in five seconds."
Investigators later determined the weapon was a realistic-looking metal BB gun.
The woman described Logue as cycling between calmness and explosive rage, saying he acted like a "lunatic." She said he barricaded her inside a bedroom by pushing a dresser against the door.
According to court records, Logue had been drinking heavily and had taken cocaine and 12 Prozac pills. Logue’s defense attorney said both Logue and the victim had been drinking the morning of Oct. 27, 2024. Testing later showed the woman's blood alcohol concentration was below Maryland's legal limit to drive.
"It was torture"
Fighting back tears Monday, the woman told the court the assault fundamentally changed her life.
"What had happened that day wasn't just an assault to me," she said. "I was held in a room for hours while being beaten and threatened."
Unable to continue reading, she asked a prosecutor to finish her victim impact statement.
"During those hours, I was terrified," the statement read. "I felt trapped, helpless, and completely at the mercy of someone who wanted to hurt me. It was torture."
She said she continues to struggle with severe anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder and no longer feels safe.
Prosecutors also played surveillance video from the incident showing Logue dragging the woman – who was wearing only a shirt –across the driveway outside his home as she screamed for help.
A neighbor who witnessed part of the attack called 911 and told the operator, "The young man has done some terrible things in the last couple of years, and I am afraid of him."
Prior allegations
Assistant State's Attorney Michael DeStefano told the court he had spoken with seven other women who described similar sexually aggressive behavior by Logue.
None of those allegations resulted in criminal charges.
"They did tell me he was charming at the front end," DeStefano said. "And then, after alcohol, it turned very violent, very mean, very quickly."
DeStefano also said while in college, Logue had been disciplined by Washington and Lee University and his fraternity over inappropriate conduct involving women.
In February 2025, prosecutors sought permission to introduce evidence at trial that Logue allegedly forcibly fondled a freshman at his fraternity house in 2019, along with evidence involving prior allegations by a former girlfriend. Because the case ended in a guilty plea, the court never ruled on whether that evidence would be admissible.
Defense cites mental illness
Defense attorney Brian Thompson urged the judge to spare Logue from prison, arguing his client suffers from severe mental illness and substance abuse problems.
"I don't see any possible good that can come from further incarcerating him," Thompson said.
He asked Norman to impose a sentence focused on treatment and close supervision.
A Johns Hopkins psychologist concluded Logue experiences intense rage toward women stemming from feelings of abandonment after his mother's death from Parkinson's disease in 2021.
"This rage is normally kept in check by psychological and neurological controls," Dr. Chris Kraft wrote, "but becomes expressed behaviorally when disinhibited by heavy substance abuse."
Thompson also said Logue previously experienced psychotic episodes, including one in which he believed men had rappelled into his home to attack him. He sprinkled baby powder on the floor hoping to detect footprints of unseen intruders. During the assault, Thompson said, Logue told the victim he believed she was involved in a sex-trafficking conspiracy.
Logue originally intended to pursue a not criminally responsible defense—Maryland's equivalent of an insanity plea—but later abandoned it as part of the plea agreement.
Plea agreement
Logue pleaded guilty June 11 to first-degree assault and fourth-degree sex offense.
In exchange, prosecutors declined to pursue a first-degree rape charge—which carries a potential life sentence—and several related offenses.
Thompson said after Logue serves some time in prison, he plans to ask the court to reduce his sentence and later seek a modification of the 15-year Tier I sex offender registration requirement if permitted under Maryland law.
Before sentencing, Logue apologized to the woman.
"It was never my intention to harm her in any way, shape or form," he said, looking toward the judge because the victim had requested he not make eye contact with her.