Mr. Aron, 36, arrived in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn wearing an orange jail jumpsuit, a skullcap and a full beard. In a flat tone softer than a whisper, he responded to a series of prepared questions from the judge about the crime, offering one-word answers but no additional details or emotional response.
An agreement with the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, under which he pleaded guilty to one charge of second-degree murder and one charge of second-degree kidnapping, calls for Mr. Aron to be sent to prison for at least 40 years. He is to be formally sentenced on Aug. 29. It will bring to a close an unusually ghastly case that stoked parents’ fears about allowing their children to walk the city’s streets alone and forced residents of Borough Park, one of the city’s safest neighborhoods, to confront violence that they had seen before only from afar.
Lawyers for Mr. Aron, who has a history of mental illness and had faced a possible life sentence, had considered using an insanity defense if the case went to trial. But Justice Neil J. Firetog told Mr. Aron on Thursday that “a defense of not responsible by reason of mental disease or defect would not be a viable defense.”
Leiby’s parents, who pushed for the plea agreement to avoid a trial where they would relive the horrors of their son’s death, did not attend the hearing. State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who has served as a family spokesman, read a statement on their behalf that said they were eager to have the case conclude and did not wish to be contacted by reporters.
“Today we close the door on this one aspect of our tragedy and seek to remember only the gifts that God has bestowed,” Mr. Hikind said, “including the nine years Leiby was with us.”
On July 11, 2011, a month before his birthday, Leiby was allowed for the first time to walk partway home alone from day camp. Though he had practiced the seven-block route with his parents, he lost his way. He stopped to ask a stranger for help, a random encounter that would lead to his death.
The stranger was Mr. Aron, a clerk at a nearby hardware supply store. He offered to drive Leiby to the Judaica bookstore the boy was looking for as a landmark, but instead took him to a wedding in Rockland County, north of the city, and later to his attic apartment in Kensington, Brooklyn.
Meanwhile, after Leiby’s parents raised the alarm about the missing boy, thousands of volunteers from the Hasidic community and others took to the streets, putting up posters seeking information and offering a reward. The police joined in the search.
Mr. Aron told the courtroom that the intensity of the search effort caused him to panic. He smothered the boy with a towel and then cut up his body for easier disposal. The city medical examiner’s office determined that Mr. Aron had also drugged Leiby.
A day and a half after the boy’s disappearance, the police found surveillance video that led them to Mr. Aron’s home. They found some of Leiby’s remains in the freezer and other parts of the body in a suitcase in a trash bin two and a half miles away.
Though he had written and signed a confession detailing the crime, Mr. Aron initially pleaded not guilty to eight criminal counts of murder and kidnapping. After his arrest Mr. Aron said he heard voices and had some hallucinations. A court-ordered psychological exam found that he had psychological disorders, though he was deemed competent to stand trial.
At the plea hearing, Mr. Aron spoke the softest when recounting the more gruesome elements of the crime, leading his lawyers to repeat his answers when the judge asked him to speak up.
Afterward, Jennifer L. McCann, a lawyer for Mr. Aron, explained why her client had shown little emotion during the hearing.
“The flat affect you saw today is part of his mental condition,” Ms. McCann said. “It is not something that interferes with his ability to understand what the judge was doing today or enter into a plea deal.”
“He is very remorseful in his own way,” she added, “and unfortunately his mental capacity precludes him from expressing it in a way that you and I would find typical.”
Source: NY Times
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