Former Table 8 owner sentenced for secretly giving girlfriend abortion drug

Joshua Woodward, former co-owner of shuttered South Beach restaurants Table 8 and 8 Oz. Burger Bar, was sentenced Friday to nine years in prison for secretly giving his pregnant Los Angeles girlfriend an abortion drug, causing her to miscarry.

Woodward pleaded no contest to an attempted murder charge in November and faced life in prison. He is expected to serve at least 85 percent of his nine-year sentence, prosecutors told the New York Daily News.

In 2009, prosecutors said, Woodward slipped the early-term abortion drug misoprostol to his girlfriend at the time, Gail Greaves, who was 13 weeks pregnant.

Woodward, who ran restaurants in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago in addition to Miami Beach and is the husband of former Ocean Drive editor Suzy Buckley, drugged pickles in Greaves’ refrigerator and rubbed crushed misoprostol pills onto her vagina during a sexual encounter.

Investigators also reported that Woodward searched the Internet for “Evil ways to terminate a pregnancy” and “Ways men have forced abortions” in the days and weeks leading up to the encounters.

“Do you not understand that you are a textbook psychopath?” Greaves said at Friday’s sentencing in Los Angeles County Superior Court, facing Woodward. “Do you really not understand what you’ve done to me, yourself, your family? You took my choice away.

“I get to see you sitting there right now with no remorse. You are a sick, sick individual, and you are disgusting,” she added. “You don’t care who you hurt as long as you get what you want.”

Added prosecutor Habib Balian: “We are extremely pleased to bring closure to this victim for this horrific crime.”

Before his arrest, Woodward was a partner with celebrity chef Govind Armstrong in Table 8, which had a two-year run at 1458 Ocean Dr. from 2007-09. They also had a stake in 8 Oz., which operated at 1080 Alton Rd. from 2009-’12.

This story was originally published January 30, 2016 at 12:45 PM with the headline "Former Table 8 owner sentenced for secretly giving girlfriend abortion drug."