CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A doctor from Pennsylvania who wore a black mask and ambushed his former son-in-law with a crowbar in Cleveland Heights last year was sentenced to three years in prison Tuesday.

Dr. Georges Bensimhon, 67, an anesthesiologist from Allentown, offered no explanation or motive for his bloody attack on Dr. Seth Alan Hoffer, a neurosurgeon at University Hospitals.

"I am not a killer," Bensimhon professed during his sentencing hearing in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. "I'm a healer."

Defense lawyer Larry Zukerman was equally baffled by his client's uncharacteristic violence. He presented mitigating circumstances he hoped would save the doctor from a prison sentence.

"Georges Bensimhon is a good man," Zukerman said. "He's a war hero who was decorated by (Israeli Prime Minister) Golda Meir. But there's nothing that can legally justify this horrible event."

Bensimhon's daughter, Danielle, and Hoffer were engaged in a contentious divorce in the months leading up to the attack, and were battling over custody of their one-year-old daughter.

During the predawn hours of Sept. 4, Hoffer emerged from his house on Dellwood Road, intending to drive to the airport. He had a flight to Florida, where he intended to pick up his daughter to bring to Ohio for Rosh Hashanah, the start of the Jewish New Year.

He never made it to his car. Bensimhon, dressed all in black, leaped from his hiding place in the bushes and began pummeling Hoffer on the head and biting him. Hoffer eventually prevailed and screamed to his neighbors to call the police.

When officers searched the bushes they found a backpack containing syringes and bottles of three types of sedatives -- which when mixed together comprised what prosecutors called a "deadly drug cocktail."

Zukerman challenged that accusation, acknowledging the combination of sedatives could result in significant respiratory problems, but denying the shot would be lethal.

Assistant County Prosecutor Jesse Canonico dismissed as "preposterous" Bensimhon's claim in court documents that he attacked Hoffer out of "love and concern for his daughter's well-being."

"The state does not tolerate the vigilante criminal violence of an angry father-in-law who now essentially claims his actions were justified because of a legal custody dispute he was not a party to," Canonico wrote in a presentence memorandum.

Bensimhon was indicted on charges of attempted aggravated murder, but in April he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of felonious assault. He faced a prison sentence of two to eight years in prison.

Judge John Russo compared the case to a Greek tragedy, but told the crowded courtroom he could not allow his personal feelings about the divorce case or his sympathies for those involved to influence his sentence. Rather, the seriousness of the defendant's conduct and the impact his actions had on the victim formed the foundation for his decision, he said.

Russo also ordered Bensimhon to pay $2,510 in restitution to Hoffer, and to serve three years probation after he is released from prison.

The Hoffers were granted a divorce last November.