COLLEEN LONG, Associated Press
NEW YORK – A hardware store clerk was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years to life in prison after pleading guilty to kidnapping, killing and dismembering a lost little boy, bringing an end to a gruesome crime that horrified a tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn.
Levi Aron had pleaded guilty this month to lesser charges in a deal that spared him a criminal trial and the possibility of life in prison without parole. When asked Wednesday if he wanted to speak at his sentencing hearing, the 37-year old whispered “no.” He will be eligible for parole in 40 years.
Aron wore a black yarmulke, bushy beard and orange prison jumpsuit, and kept his head down and eyes closed for much of the hearing. His attorneys said Aron suffered a head injury as a child that went untreated.
“As a child and a young man, he should have been treated for his mental illness,” attorney Howard Greenberg said. Outside court, his attorneys said Aron was sorry – but a public apology would ring false.