Kayson Pearson and Troy Hendrix, convicted of turning a family basement in Brooklyn into a torture chamber to savage and kill a college student and rape a 15-year-old girl, were sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
"You are going to be confined to a place where there is no love, where there is no compassion, which is cold and loveless," said Justice Albert Tomei of state Supreme Court in Brooklyn. "And you will be consigned to that place for a very long time."
Tomei, who played a major role in eliminating the death penalty in this state, ordered two life terms without parole for each defendant, followed by multiple terms of 25 years, pronouncing that a fitting end for men he described as lower than animals.
"Animals do not torture each other," he said.
The sentencing marked the final chapter of a three-year odyssey through the justice system, a case that began with homemade posters for a missing young woman, temporarily included capital charges and finally produced two months of court hearings.
Before Tomei could deliver the ending, though, an epilogue began next door to his courtroom.
There, Justice James Starkey arraigned Pearson and Hendrix on charges arising from a courtroom escape attempt in January, when they used knives fashioned from plexiglass to wound a lawyer and tried to take a court officer's gun.
Both men pleaded not guilty to the escape attempt charges, then appeared one at a time before Tomei. His courtroom was crowded with spectators, including the district attorney, counselors, the teenage rape victim, dozens of supporters and relatives of the murdered student and some of the jurors.
"We just wanted to see it all the way to the end," one juror said.
Hendrix, 22, the meeker of the two men, was brought into the courtroom first, wearing glasses, baggy jeans and an oversize golf shirt. His hands were cuffed and bagged and his legs were shackled.
The prosecutor, Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi, asked for the maximum sentences, describing the ordeal visited upon Romona Moore, a 21-year-old psychology student at Hunter College in April 2003.
"They tortured her physically, sexually and mentally for hour on hour," Nicolazzi said, "not ending until they took her life."
Moore's relatives displayed her photograph and spoke of their loss.
"Not only did they take her life," said a cousin, Troy Mann, "they stole our family's joy."
Hendrix disclaimed responsibility for the crime, saying "You got the wrong man."
At that, another of Moore's cousins stormed from the courtroom, cursing at Hendrix and banging the door. The court officers scanned the room warily.
Tomei, his robe open over his shirt and tie, began, "I have been a judge for 28 years."
"Mr Hendrix," he said, "sometime, and I don't know when, whatever goodness you had in your body died."
Next came Pearson, 24, led into the courtroom in a brown prison jumpsuit with bags over his hands. He directed vulgarities at the judge and prosecutor, then promised to see the spectators in hell, but Tomei had the last word.
"To the family of Romona Moore," the judge said, "the court extends its heartfelt sympathy. That's all the court can say."
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