Jorge DePina is sentenced in the beating death of his daughter, Aleida. Pool photo by Sandor Bodo / The Providence Journal
By Steve Klamkin WPRO News
Calling him “a sadist, an evil, self-involved excuse for a man,” Superior Court Judge Netti Vogel Wednesday sentenced Jorge Depina to life in prison for his second-degree murder conviction in the brutal beating death of his 10-year old daughter, Aleida Depina.
Depina, 37, offered a tearful denial that he caused the child’s death, and swore at the judge as he was led out of the courtroom by deputy sheriffs.
Depina’s sentencing came at the conclusion of a nearly hour-long hearing nearly six weeks after a jury found the Pawtucket man guilty in the death of his daughter. During the trial, said Special Assistant Attorney General Shannon Signore, jurors were shown videos depicting abuse inflicted on the girl by Depina.
“I’m not going to show you the final video of Aleida’s last hours of her short life,” Signore told the court. “Stripped down to only her pants, powder on her back, her hands tied behind her back as the defendant beats her with an electrical cord that he made himself, making sure there were little pieces of metal sticking out so they could pierce her little skin,” said Signore, who is Chief of the Attorney General’s Child Abuse unit.
The judge said that medical testimony indicated she died of a perforated intestine, which is seldom fatal when treated promptly.
“He drove the dead body of his own child to the hospital, and the jury and the court watched the defendant during the trial,” Judge Vogel said. “Just like today, he cried like a baby. But the court is convinced that those tears were, during the trial as they are today, for himself, not for Aleida.”
After the sentencing, Judge Vogel read a lengthy statement addressing the lawsuit filed by the Providence Journal and other media organizations on First Amendment grounds, in response to her order, since rescinded, barring anyone from contacting any of the jurors in Depina’s trial.
The judge said that she imposed the order out of concern for the “safety and protection of those jurors” in what she called “a difficult case for jurors to sit through for three weeks”.
“I chose to vacate the order to end the distraction caused by the controversy, however the lawsuit brought by the media groups is still pending,” the judge said.
About five of the jurors attended the sentencing hearing, occupying the front row in the spectator’s section of the courtroom. Afterward, all declined comment on the sentencing or the controversy.
