The Fifth District Court of Appeal on Tuesday upheld the five-year prison and 15-year probation sentence against Brendan Depa, the former Matanzas High School student whose video-captured beating of a teacher’s aide unconscious in February 2023 drew worldwide attention.
A three-judge panel affirmed the decision without an opinion, as is frequent in appellate decisions.
Depa’s lawyer, Hani Demetrious of the Fort Lauderdale-based Robert David Malove law firm, argued in an appeal last April that Circuit Judge Terence Perkins had abused his discretion when he sentenced Depa as an adult rather than as a juvenile offender.
Depa was 17 at the time he attacked Joan Naydich after he was angered for being disciplined over an electronic game he had (and that school officials mishandled, it was later learned). The State Attorney’s Office charged him with a first-degree felony assault of a school employee, as an adult. He faced up to 30 years in prison.
His defense lawyers at sentencing pressed for a two-year sentence in a juvenile justice system facility to keep him out of state prison, and to remove the long probationary term. Perkins was intent on some prison time and a long supervisory term. Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark had asked for seven years in prison and 10 on probation.
Demetrious did not return a request for comment. The appeals court appears to put an end to the case, especially as a long-time confidant and former teacher of Depa described him today.
“He has truly accepted that he did something horrible and that there was consequences for that,” Gene Lopes, a special education teacher who regularly taught Depa at the Flagler County jail and has remained in contact with him since, said in a lengthy interview. “He’s a good human, he made a horrible mistake, and more than ever he realizes that, but his soul is good, and his strong beliefs, strong Christian beliefs he has, have also allowed him to see other points of view, and that amazes me.”
Lopes disagreed with the appeals court decision, as he had disagreed with Perkins’s sentence. But he spoke of Depa as if he’d moved on, and was now preparing for life after prison. Lopes talks with Depa every other week and last visited him three weeks ago at the Wakulla prison in Florida’s Big Bend, where he got “a big Brendan hug.” The Department of Corrections describes the prison as “a faith and character based facility.”
Depa is now 20. “He’s had a very positive attitude. When I saw him he was upbeat, he was kind of content,” Lopes said, “and he also had a much better understanding of what the consequences could have been of what happened, so I think the time has helped him to really get inside his action and he’s been pretty much a model inmate. He’s doing some reading, does a little bit of writing. He has gotten involved in a lot of different faith organizations. He was attending some Jewish services on Friday nights, been doing a lot of studying into the Bible.” He also looked in on Muslim studies, just out of curiosity. He has passed the full GED, and has his eyes set on college after prison, and a career in counseling, to help people who may have been in his circumstances.
“I don’t know at this point what more time in prison is going to do for him,” Lopes said. “I feel like whatever he needed to fix, I feel like he has a really good hold on that. The biggest problem he’s had I think is, he has a lot of intellectual curiosity and there are a lot of limits on the things he can do in terms of satisfying that curiosity.”
By the time Depa was sentenced he had already served a year and a half in a juvenile jail in Jacksonville and at the county jail in Flagler County, after he turned 18. He is due for release on Aug. 3, 2027. With gain time, or early release for good behavior, he is eligible to be released after serving 85 percent of his prison time, from the day of his incarceration in the state system (time accumulated in county jails doesn’t count toward gain time). Potentially, he could be released around February 2027.
His latest prison photo shows him clean-shaven, shorn of the big head of hair he had in his court appearances, with a thin mustache and his usual horn-rimmed glasses, brown now instead of black. In contrast with most inmates’ mugshots, he looks relaxed, his shoulders considerably chipless, bearing an expression with the faintest of Mona Lisa smiles.
His attack on Naydich had been laced with profanities and racist slurs. He has accepted responsibility for that. “His understanding is that it could have been a lot worse as far as Joan goes,” Lopes said, but he also “understands there’s a disparity between his sentence and the sentence of other people who have committed similar offenses but are of a different race.” It is among the things he wants to address when he is released.
Depa is aware, for example, of the five-year prison sentence followed by just five years on probation that the white son of a Flagler County Sheriff’s deputy received for a hit-and-run death (of a Black woman), if from a different judge, as an example of that disparity.
“He’s aware of all that but it doesn’t control him. He does the things that he needs to do to prepare himself for being outside in the real world,” Lopes said, describing Depa as bearing neither resentment nor as idly counting the days until his release, but filling his time constructively to the extent possible in prison.
He has not been the subject of violence, and reports being treated well, according to Lopes, with perhaps one minor incident. Depa has changed his appearance and works out (he had never done that before), suggesting that the look in the prison mugshot may not have been a one-off. Lopes is only one of several people, family and otherwise, who visit him and stay in contact with him despite the prison’s isolated location (his mother lives in the Tampa Bay area).
“So he’s very optimistic about the future. Myself, his mom, I think we’re all optimistic that he’ll get through this,” Lopes said, “and when he comes out he’ll find some sort of niche to be successful in life. I do think that some of the publicity, as negative as it’s been sometimes, it’s positive–there are a number of people who have gotten to know him in a different way, so I think he’s going to have opportunities because there are people who have seen the other side of him, which now is pretty much the only side of him.”
Asked about the lifeline he and others have provided to Depa in prison, Lopes’s response was surprising: “He’s been a lifeline to me. In all honesty, he’s been a lifeline to me,” Lopes said, describing how Depa inspired him to get back to teaching, as he now does in St. Johns County. “He’s changed my life.”
Atwp says
Didn’t a young white woman do something like that and got little to no time? Plesse correct me if I’m wrong. My advice to all young people especially young African Males please stay out of trouble. The color of your skin you can’t change but you do have control of your behavior. What Department was wrong and he should be punished, the white young lady should be punished too.
Concerned Citizen says
Not much concern for the victim eh? I forget you dislike Caucasians.
Tired says
I’m so tired of this argument. Blame the kid who beat this lady for what he did instead of making excuses because of skin color. I would bet if it were you or your family on the other end of his assault you would think differently
Bo Peep says
Great job.
Concerned Citizen says
It amazes me the lack of concern this news forum has for the victim.Probably celebrating the beat down of a Caucasian. Pierre can hardly hide his disdain sometimes.
Flagler Expatriate says
Super happy I got out of this shithole! Matanzas High School is like a third world school one would find in South Sudan!
Shoregal says
You have no idea what you had. It is completely obvious that you never attended a school that was in a bad neighborhood. You have never had to walk over a tweaking drug addict on the sidewalk on your way into school. You obviously weren’t walking home from school, being harassed by drug dealers and prostitutes. That is a bad high school experience let alone the gang members that actually attended high school. when you walked those shoes, then go ahead and post about how bad Matanzas high school is. Flagler County may be a lot of things, but Flagler County is still a wonderful place to raise a family and work compared to so many more horrible places you can be and I have been in those places.
William Stonehocker says
I appreciate Brendan changing for the better and Gene Lopes staying on his side. Joan Naydich had no business being Brendan’s aide if she didn’t have the experience and Barbara Buchanan…well, she was no one’s cup of tea.
ASD Parent says
This is a horrible situation. FULL STOP. Having compassion for the victim does not preclude having compassion for the offender. Of course I would be very upset if the victim was someone in my family. I would also be very upset if the offender was my son. I hope that Ms, Naydich has/will recover physically and mentally from what was clearly a traumatizing event. I also hope that the people who were responsible for putting her in that postion without giving her all the information she needed are held responsible for their negligence. I don’t know this young man personally, but I do have a son on the spectrum. He is the same age as Brendan and was in the Flagler County school system from 3yrs to 20yrs old. He might have been in the same class with him at some point. What I know from this experience is that Autism presents differently for every individual on the spectrum. Different children would have very different reactions to the same stimulus. It is INCREDIBLY important for ALL members of their support team to know each student’s unique personality, triggers, comforts etc. I’m sure most of the people involved in educating special needs students are doing their best and truly care for these children. I have never met a person who signs up for the job of taking care of special needs children voluntarily for any other reason than a extreme level of compassion. Teaching is already a difficult and often thankless and underpaid position. Much more so for those who choose to teach the children who have the most difficulty learning and following rules. What I have also seen is that the success of the administration and support staff responsible for establishing a safe and well-informed learning environment for these children can be hit-or-miss. All of this should have been taken into account when deciding the fate of this young man. The “correctional” system has very little if any record of correcting anything for neurotypical much less atypical inmates. Most of the time people continue down the path they were heading down anyway unless there are other (actually therapeutic) interventions at the same time. The corrections system is absolutely unprepared to offer those interventions for Brandon. The environment of a prison is dangerous and often times abusive. Prison guards do not have to be trained in dealing with people with special needs and many of the other inmates are exactly the types of people who will take advantage of any kind of percieved weakness in another person. Being locked behind bars is not something that is going to be a “corrective” experience for someone on the spectrum as they often have difficulty linking abstract concepts like indirect causes and effects over long periods of time. Brendan did not ask to be born this way, nor did he ask for whatever circumstances that caused his parents to not be able to provide him the care he needed. We, as a society know well enough that we could have done better by him and we should have. It IS the system that continues to fail this young man AND Ms. Naydich. We are part of that system. So if all we do is make a judgement based on some snippet of information we find online and/or find ways to turn other people’s comments into personal attacks on ouselves, then we also hold some responsibility for this situation and all the other similar situations that happen like this in the future because we were too busy pointing fingers instead of asking questions. I’m not going to argue whether or not this young man’s race has any effect on his sentencing outcome the same way I’m not going to argue the spherical shape of the earth as anyone who would argue the counterpoint isn’t someone who’s opinion on the subject is worth considering.
Skibum says
As unfortunate as this incident was, both for the victim who was seriously injured by Depa, and for Depa as well, we must remember that there are limits to what the criminal justice system can do and what it is designed to do. Whether a criminal defendant is ultimately convicted or found not guilty of a crime, and regardless of what is found to be an appropriate sentence for someone who has committed a crime, there will always be those who are not happy with the outcome.
Our system of justice is in no way a perfect system, but it is much better than what many other countries have in place to deal with people who commit crimes. Dealing with people who have additional deficiencies or challenges like Depa has is even more difficult for courts.
We obviously cannot go back in time and wish better decisions had been made by his family and caregivers, but it seems that Depa should never have been placed in that type of classroom situation, and had better options been available or more precautions taken, maybe he would have been fine. But the plain fact is that his behavior caused an innocent teaching assistant to come very close to suffering debilitating, life altering injuries. That is why many school systems have very structured, separate learning environments for students with the type of documented challenges and issues that Depa had. I believe he was put in a very inappropriate situation where things had the propensity to go bad, very bad… and he lived up to his worst potential because adults who should have known better failed him.
The criminal justice system is not at fault here, and Depa will have to make the best of it since he plead guilty.
William Stonehocker says
The only person who is on Brendan’s side other than his mom is Gene Lopes because he used to be a special ed teacher himself. Also, where the hell was Brendan’s father while this all happened?
Naydich is better off moving back to New England because who even gives an untrained person like her to Brendan? Buchanan…who hired an unlicensed woman like her? The excuses for those women being hired came from a staffing shortage (at least that is what Gene Lopes says).
John Willford and Reba Johnson being white wasn’t why one got 18 months probation or the other being declared mentally unsound to stand trial, it all boils down to the crime happening in the classroom and the lack of evidence.