(Pool photo)
(give2gehter.com)
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The so-called Butcher of Brooklyn will rot behind bars.
Admitted child-killer Levi Aron was sentenced yesterday to 40 years to life in prison for abducting, murdering and dismembering Leiby Kletzky, an 8-year-old boy who got lost blocks from his Borough Park home.
Wearing a black yarmulke and bright orange prison jumpsuit, Aron showed little emotion as Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Neil Firetog pronounced the sentence — part of a plea deal that will spare the Kletzky family the ordeal of a drawn-out trial.
Three weeks ago, Aron, 36, admitted that he abducted Leiby last summer, then smothered him and chopped up his body amid an intense search for the boy, who missed a turn walking home on his own from day camp for the first time.
“An innocent and angelic boy named Leiby Kletzky left his school and simply lost his way,” prosecutor Julie Rendelman said before the judge pronounced sentence. “If he had run into any normal person, he would have been safe.”
“Levi Aron, taking advantage, chose not to make Leiby safe, chose not to take him home to his loving family,” Rendelman said. “He made a choice that day. He could have let Leiby go, let him become a man and get married someday. He chose to take this boy’s life.”
Aron abducted Leiby July 11, 2011, at 18th Avenue and Dahill Road — barely two weeks before his ninth birthday.
Leiby’s heartbroken parents, Nachman and Esther Kletzky, stayed away from the sentencing.
They let the heart-wrenching statement they issued after Aron’s guilty plea speak for itself: “A day does not pass without our thinking of Leiby — but today we close the door on this one aspect of our tragedy and seek to remember only the gifts that God has bestowed, including the nine years Leiby was with us.”
A source close to the family said Leiby’s mother is due to give birth in about two months. The couple have five daughters. Leiby was their only son.
“They feel that justice has been done,” said Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a family friend. “Every time the story appears, it brings them back to the day it happened.”
Aron said nothing in court yesterday except to answer, “No,” when Firetog asked if he wanted to say anything.
Firetog sentenced him to 25 years to life in jail on a second-degree murder charge and an additional 15 years to life for second-degree kidnapping.
Aron admitted he drove Leiby to a Rockland County wedding, then back to his Kensington apartment. The next day, he went to work, came home for lunch, and went out again.
While out, Aron saw fliers for the missing boy all over his neighborhood and claims he “panicked.”
He drugged the boy, tied him up, and smothered him with a towel.
Aron’s lawyer, Pierre Bazile, said Aron had expressed remorse for the crime.
“He says he’s sorry and he wishes he hadn’t done it,” Bazile said.
“You’re not talking about a monster. You’re talking about a highly deranged person” who needed meds, Bazile said.
Howard Greenberg, another Aron lawyer, urged officials to isolate him in jail.
“If he’s not put in private custody while he’s in jail, he’ll be murdered,” Greenberg said. “There’s a lot of sick and demented people in jail, so I worry for his life. His sentence is 40 years — not death.”