Burt Pugach, Protagonist of a Strange Tabloid Love Story, Dies at 93 In 1959, he had his lover blinded. When he got out of prison, he married her. He called their relationship “a storybook romance.” Burt and Linda Pugach in 1997 at Queens Criminal Court, where he was on trial for threatening a woman with whom he was having an affair. Before he and Ms. Pugach married, he had served 14 years in prison for making similar threats against her.Credit...Emile Wamsteker/Associated Press April 14, 2021 In an incongruously serene finale to a half-century of making lurid headlines — he hired thugs to blind the lover who had spurned him, served 14 years in prison for arranging the assault, married her after he was released, cheated on her with a younger mistress and was forgiven yet again — Burt Pugach died inconspicuously four months ago in Queens.