A Florida judge sentenced a teenager with autism to five years in prison for beating a teacher’s aide unconscious, rejecting calls from the teen’s family and special needs advocates for alternatives to incarceration given Brendan Depa‘s age and disabilities.
Judge Terence Perkins sentenced Brendan Depa, who beat a teacher’s aide unconscious for taking away his Nintendo Switch, as an adult. (Court TV)
Depa, now 18, pleaded no contest to aggravated battery on a school employee for the February 2023 attack on Matanzas High School paraprofessional Joan Naydich. The brutal attack was caught on school security cameras, generating national headlines and sparking debate over the appropriate punishment for a student with special needs.
The video showed Depa chasing Naydich down a hall, shoving her to the ground, then kicking and punching her in rapid succession. Naydich testified that a teacher’s talk of taking away Depa’s Nintendo Switch appeared to trigger his fury.
Flagler County prosecutors charged Depa as an adult, which meant he faced anywhere from probation to 30 years in prison. Because Depa was 17 during the attack, Judge Terence Perkins had the option of sentencing him as a juvenile to less time in a community-based setting, such as a group home or his parents’ home, or a juvenile facility, where he would have been released at age 21.
Depa’s adoptive mother, Leanne Depa, urged the judge to “let him come home with me,” pledging to keep watch over him and follow his treatment plan. The judge also heard from two men with backgrounds in working with children with special needs who reached out to Depa to offer support after learning of the attack. One of them, retired special education teacher Eugene Lopes, said he had seen significant progress and maturation in Depa since he started tutoring him in jail. Lopes and pledged to continue supporting Depa “for the long haul,” especially if he is sentenced to community-based options.
Paraprofessional and school community officer Jerome Powell, who has an adult son with autism, said he would be willing to adopt Depa and take him into his home if the terms of his release called for a residence in Flagler County since Depa’s parents live in Hillsborough County.
Expert witnesses for the state and the defense testified Depa’s attack was a manifestation of his autism spectrum disorder. They differed on the “intentionality” of Depa’s conduct and what type of setting would best serve Depa in helping him mature and manage triggers for his violent outbursts.
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Dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit with his wrists cuffed, Depa sunk his head into his hands as the judge explained his reasoning before issuing his sentence: 60 months in prison followed by 10 years of supervised probation.
Perkins said he considered Depa’s age and disorder but was ultimately swayed into sentencing him as an adult by the “senseless, extreme violence” of the attack and other incidents in Depa’s past. Perkins also said he had “no confidence” that the juvenile system could provide Depa with “sufficient treatment” before his release in two years at age 21.
“He must be considered dangerous for the purpose of sentencing,” Perkins said. “This violence is related to issues outside his autism spectrum disorder.”
Flagler County prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Depa as an adult to seven years in prison with at least 10 years of probation, citing his history of violent behavior and the attack on Naydich. Naydich — who worked as a lunch lady for 17 years in Flagler County schools who became a paraprofessional in 2022 — testified in the hearing’s first day in May to the lasting affects of the attack, including five broken ribs, hearing, vision and memory loss, and the loss of a job she loved due to post-traumatic stress.
Despite years of close monitoring in group homes and in a class for students with special needs, Depa “has shown he is incapable of abiding by societal rules,” Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark said Tuesday in her closing argument.
“Everyone wants to see Mr. Depa succeed but first we need to deal with what he did and there are consequences for what he did,” Clark said. “He almost killed a woman. He should be punished for that.”
Depa’s lawyer, Kurt Teifke, argued Depa’s age, disability and progress since his arrest suggested a community-based setting would best serve his needs.
Teifke called two expert witnesses to support his position. Autism disorders specialist Kimberly Spence said she believed Depa was “neurologically compromised” and a prison setting would not offer him the intensive, specialized treatment he needs on a consistent basis to grow and thrive.
“Incarcerating him will not change the factors that precipitated his behavior,” Spence said.
Spence said Depa’s school records indicated staff failed to recognize his triggers or employ recommended strategies from his behavioral plans on the day of the attack and in other instances. Naydich herself testified that she had not seen Depa’s behavioral plan or been made aware of his triggers or intervention strategies.
Forensic psychologist Dr. Julie Harper, who specializes in in juvenile brain development, said the smaller staff to person ratio in a juvenile facility compared to prison would make it a better placement for Depa.
“There’s plenty of evidence that he’s not operating at the typical level of 17- or 18-year-old,” Harper said. “He’s early on in treatment… and because he’s early on he has a lot of growth and changes to come.”
