Brendan Depa was 17 when he attacked Joan Naydich, the paraprofessional assigned to him as a student with special needs at Matanzas High School, in February 2023. He was 18 when his sentencing hearing began on May 1 before Circuit Judge Terence Perkins, who is to decide whether to sentence Depa as a juvenile offender or as an adult, whether to send him to prison, and if so, for how long. He has already served a year and a half in detention, the last year at the Flagler County jail.
Depa will be two weeks short of his 19th birthday when his sentencing hearing resumes at 8:30 Tuesday morning, after more than three months’ hiatus, and likely concludes later that day. The judge has reserved the entire day.
Depa’s defense will attempt to recover from a decidedly grim day in May as Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark elicited testimony from Naydich, who described the violent incident and a life irreparably altered since, from the Florida state prison’s mental health director, who drew a bizarrely jovial picture of prison conditions for the mentally ill, and from a psychologist–a hired gun for the prosecution–who derided the severity of Depa’s autism, albeit with more subjective and clearly tendentious generalities than substantiated evidence.
Depa’s defense attorney, Kurt Teifke, did not appear to have effectively countered or discredited the testimony. If Teifke had been caught flat-footed or surprised by the prosecution’s approach, he doesn’t have that excuse now, having benefited from the longest preparation time for a response than any defense attorney has had in Perkins’s courtroom in recent memory.
A sentencing hearing interrupted by such a long delay is almost unheard of locally, but it’s not that extraordinary in bench trials. Fortunately for Depa, the lawyers’ cases are not directed at an impressionable or forgetful jury but exclusively at Perkins, a discerning judge who lives and rules by copious notes he takes during hearings, to which time delays are irrelevant.
If there is new evidence at all, it is Depa’s disciplinary history at the Flagler County jail, which the prosecution may introduce. But that history of disciplinary reports looks more recurring than it is. The jail has documented six disciplinary incidents in the year Depa has been there, plus two incident in which Depa was the victim of attacks, not the aggressor. Only one of those disciplinary reports, the first, found Depa to be both violent and the primary aggressor. There was one other incident of violence, but Depa was not the primary aggressor and even attempted to walk away. The remaining incidents rate as such because the slightest incident tends to be documented, but they amount to little more than fooleries or horseplay, or the negligible acts of defiance by an adolescent who has reason to be board and has a history of depression.
The most severe incident took place two and a half weeks after Depa was transferred from a jail in Jacksonville to Flagler County. That incident has been reported here and mentioned in court previously. Depa had spat at another inmate, fought with him and was determined to be the aggressor. The other inmate, Depa told authorities, had taunted him about attacking a woman and told him he was heading for prison.
The other violent incident took place on Oct. 17. A corrections deputies saw Depa and another inmate in an argument. Depa ignored deputies’ commands to stop. He was pepper-sprayed twice and wrestled to the ground, face down, and handcuffed before he was treated by medical personnel and returned to his cell. But a review of the incident through video surveillance showed him not to have been the aggressor, and if anything, to have attempted to walk away from a beating by Adrien Otero, a 20-year-old inmate awaiting his sentence on a felony battery charge from attacking his mother’s husband and breaking his nose with his fists. He was sentenced to six months at the jail.)
Depa had moved toward Otero when Otero punched him in the face. “Depa appeared to begin retreating and walking away, while Inmate Otero delivered two more closed fisted strikes to the head and face to Inmate Depa, knocking him to the floor,” an investigation of the incident states. “At no point did Inmate Otero attempt to remove himself from the situation at any point. Inmate Otero continued to stand over Inmate Depa, continuing to challenge him. Based on the totality of circumstances, Inmate Otero and Inmate Derpa were mutual and willing combatants to a physical altercation. Due to Inmate Depa not raising his fists in a fighting stance or attempting to strike Inmate Otero, Inmate Depa was not charged with ‘Fighting.'” But due to the “disorderly behavior” and multiple other complaints, he was disciplined with a write-up of disorderly conduct.
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The report concluded: “Inmate Depa’s behavior has observably begun escalating and becoming a risk to the security of the Lima Block Housing Unit, which houses inmates with special needs and medical requirements.” The recommendation was that he be moved to a different unit.
Twice Depa was the target of other inmates’ taunting or attacks. On Oct. 14, another inmate struck Depa twice. Depa did not retaliate. At the end of March, another inmate threw the liquid contents of a cup at Depa while Depa was in his own cell. There was no mention of provocation in the incident report. The inmate was disciplined.
Otherwise, the remaining incidents are not more serious than summer camp-like rule-breaking. On Oct. 16, Depa refused to obey an order. The following month he was rude to a nurse, telling her she’d finally shaved her mustache. In March, he was written up for dueling with another inmate with cleaning spray bottles after the other inmate spat on him (according to Depa). Depa is then seen on surveillance video trying to clean up the mess.
In March, “trying to be funny,” according to an incident report, he dropped one of his pills and asked for another, only to end up taking both pills. “It should be noted that [inmate] Depa has never done this before or tried to hide or alter his medication in front of me in the past,” the reporting deputy wrote. “When I asked [him] why he took both pills, he said it was because he was feeling depressed. I asked [Depa] if he was feeling suicidal, and he said no.” In April, he as disciplined for not returning his jail-issued tablet when told. In April he received a “corrective consultation,” which is equivalent to a verbal reprimand, for playing with another inmate’s meal tray by putting it in and out of its “chow flap,” according to a report.
Depa faces sentence on a first degree felony that carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison, though Depa will not serve anywhere near that. He pleaded to the charge in an open plea, leaving it to Perkins to decide whether to sentence him as a youthful offender, which would cap the sentence at a few years, or to apply a “downward departure” from the sentencing guidelines, which is not uncommon when the defense makes a case for it.
At the county jail, Depa has benefited from a triangle of care and concern that has enabled him to work a long way toward his GED and reach a level of acceptance for his fate. Daniel Engert, the jail’s chief, has ensured that Depa’s education continues, with innumerable and continuing sessions with Gene Lopes, the retired educator and his primary tutor, and with the Flagler Technical Institute, the school district’s vocational and adult education arm.
“For the last couple of months he’s been a model citizen there,” Lopes said. “He’s accepted where he is. He deeply wants to get out. But he understands where he is.” He has “trained himself to be a better person,” Lopes said. They last spoke on Thursday. He’s been a little down. But he’s adjusted. “He has a determination to get his schooling finished. And he said to me, ‘Look, I’m going to accept whatever happens on Tuesday.'”
David S. says
In my opinion he needs to serve 10 years. Joan is still recovering and she will have issues to deal with for the rest of her life. Also depa has committed various issues when he was in both lock ups which needs to be addressed.
David S. says
May I add that the state needs to get him the mental health that he needs.
The dude says
And the folks who put a lunch lady in with special needs kids?
Or the olds who always vote against any sort of funding for special needs kids or the non special needs kids for that matter?
What should their punishment be?
Nephew Of Uncle Sam says
He’s served his time in the 1 1/2 years he’s been locked up, others that do the same or worse serve the same time or less.
Example: “… Adrien Otero, a 20-year-old inmate awaiting his sentence on a felony battery charge from attacking his mother’s husband and breaking his nose with his fists. He was sentenced to six months at the jail.”
Time to release him on probation and get the mental health he deserves.
William Stonehocker says
I have autism myself. Research has proven that prisons are not equipped to handle people with autism. Because Brendan is managing to better himself, I think it’s time he gets released back to the custody of his mother. I don’t care what y’all think.