OAN Staff Abril Elfi
8:35 AM – Wednesday, August 7, 2024
The Florida teen who brutally hit his high school teacher unconscious after she confiscated his Nintendo has been sentenced to five years in prison.
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On Tuesday, now 18-year-old Brendan Depa was sentenced by Circuit Judge Terence Perkins to five years in prison and 15 years of probation after his release.
He will also be put in a group home after being released.
Depa was charged with felony aggravated battery – bodily harm after he attacked Joan Naydich in a hallway inside Matanzas High School in Palm Coast.
The teen was seen on camera sprinting towards Naydich and shoved her to the floor, stomped on her and punched her 15 times.
Depa pleaded no contest to the charges in October. His initial sentencing date—which could have resulted in up to 30 years in state prison—was rescheduled in May after Perkins indicated he needed more witness testimony.
Despite the pleas of his mother and defense lawyer, the teen, who has autism spectrum disorder, will serve his sentence in jail.
“They are punishing that he is Black, they are punishing that he is large and they are punishing his disability,” the teen’s adoptive mother, Leanne Depa, said after the sentencing. “I think he needs help, and I think he needs treatment. But I don’t think he needs to be put away in a prison where he’s going to be taken advantage of or harmed.”
The mother went on to blame the school for not properly handling her son’s disabilities.
“I had told the school that being hungry was a trigger, that noise was a trigger, that being told ‘no’ was a trigger, that being corrected in front of other people was a trigger, and electronics was a huge trigger,” Leann Depa added.
Since Depa attacked Naydich when he was still 17-years-old, his attorney claimed he should be tried as a juvenile, but Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark countered that the teen had a violent past.
Perkins agreed with Clark’s point, stating that Brendan Depa had previously been charged with multiple battery incidents and that the attack in February 2023 wasn’t an isolated incident.
Naydich alleged that Depa had spat in her face and called her a “whore.”
“The last thing I remember is having my hand on the door handle,” Naydich told The New York Post in January. “I don’t remember anything [else] until 3:30 p.m. when I came to. And at that point I was in the ER and my son and daughter were standing there.”
She continued stating that since the attack, she has PTSD and suffers from anxiety because of the attack.
“Brendan Depa’s actions that day has caused me to lose a job that I had for almost 19 years, lose my financial security, lose my health insurance,” Naydich said during a May hearing.
“Like everything was taken away from me that morning,” Naydich added. “At 10 o’clock that morning. Everything was taken away. My life will never be what it was before.”
While Depa is allowed to file a written appeal of his sentence, he must stay 500 feet from Naydich’s residence and place of employment and maintain no communication with her.
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