Linda David was rescued, battered and emaciated, from a sailboat where authorities say she was virtually imprisoned.

Victor David says now that he is free, he wants to be reunited with her. But Linda David is under 24-hour nursing care and there are three restraining orders barring him from seeing her.

In a telephone interview with The Seattle Times, David maintained he is innocent of abusing his wife. The 66-year-old said he wants to whisk her away to Iraq, where he said he plans to drive an oil-tanker truck.

The Times reports that Linda David appears not to remember him. Despite years of therapy, she can barely talk or see, can shuffle only a few steps without assistance and has no short-term memory.

For more than a decade, the state Department of Social and Health Services paid David to serve as his wife's caregiver after he claimed she had multiple sclerosis. In 1997, a DSHS worker became suspicious and called police.

The state paid Linda David nearly $9 million on a claim alleging DSHS was negligent in the handling of her case.