The Florida teenager who was caught on video assaulting a teacher’s aide after she took away his Nintendo Switch was sentenced to five years in state prison, according to news outlets.
Brendan Depa, 18, who has autism, was sentenced on Tuesday, Aug. 6, to five years in prison and 15 years probation, according to sentencing documents from the Seventh Judicial Circuit Court in Flagler County obtained by NBC News, WKMG-TV and The Daytona Beach News-Journal.
Judge Terence Perkins also ordered the Department of Corrections to conduct a full mental health assessment on Depa and to create a care plan for him, and ordered the teenager not to have any contact with the teacher’s aide, Joan Naydich.
Perkins said during the sentencing, per theDaytona Beach News-Journal, that Brendan had not expressed any remorse for his actions, and also noted Brendan’s history of violence in the past.
The 18-year-old pleaded no contest to one count of aggravated battery on an elected official or education employee in connection with the incident, which occurred in February 2023 at Matanzas High School, according to the outlets.
Video shown in court showed the employee, Naydich, taking away Brendan’s Nintendo Switch before he charged at her, knocked her to the ground and began kicking and punching her. The video showed the woman going unconscious as he continued to attack.
Naydich testified in court that the incident had a significant impact on her mentally as well as physically, saying she now has anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result.
“My life will never be what it was before,” she said in court, per NBC News and WKMG-TV. “Brendan Depa’s actions that day [have] caused me to lose a job that I had for almost 19 years, lose my financial security, lose my health insurance.”
However, Brendan’s mother, Leanne Depa, criticized the sentence, saying, “They are punishing that he is Black, they are punishing that he is large and they are punishing his disability,” per NBC News and the Daytona Beach News-Journal.
She added that the school failed in making sure the behavioral plan developed for her son was followed, and said that she thought her son “needs help,” not to “to be put away in a prison where he’s going to be taken advantage of or harmed.”
Perkins said in court that the 18-year-old would be able to appeal his sentence.
