‘A place in hell’
Judge, kin rip punk who beat boy, 3, to death
The grandmother of a 3-yearold Brooklyn boy beaten to death by his mom’s brutal boyfriend expressed her hopes Tuesday that the killer is forever haunted by his tiny victim.
Defendant Salvatore Lucchesse, 26, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on a manslaughter charge before heartbroken grandma Laurie Jordan unloaded on the cowardly killer.
“Salvatore Lucchesse took what did not belong to him,” said an emotional Jordan, sniffling through her victim impact statement. “He took Jaden’s life. I hope every time you close your eyes, you see his big eyes.
“I hope in those tortured moments you call on God, because only he can forgive you. I never will. I will never run out of tears for (Jaden).”
A handcuffed Lucchesse offered a perfunctory apology for the beating death and then stared straight ahead as the jail term was imposed by Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Deborah Dowling.
“There is a special place, I believe, that God has for you in hell, for people who beat young children to death,” said Dowling as she handed down the jail term.
The little boy, who suffered a skull fracture, lacerated kidney and lacerated liver as Lucchesse pounded him into a coma in November 2016, never learned to ride a bike, never made his first day of school, and never caught his first fish with his grandfather, said Jordan.
“This was my light,” she said of her grandson outside court. “I cannot forgive something like that happening to any child, much less mine.”
Lucchesse, who pleaded guilty last month in the death, initially refused to enter the courtroom because of media coverage in a killing that horrified the city because of its brutality and apparent bureaucratic bungling.
At the time of the boy’s death, family members blamed the Administration for Children’s Services after investigators received a tip about the ongoing abuse of Jaden – but needed three days to find the right address. Neighbors said the boy was forced to stay in a dog cage.
Lucchesse, boyfriend to the little boy’s mother, was left to baby-sit Jaden but instead brutalized the 3-yearold. The badly-battered little boy’s body was covered in feces when the boyfriend called for help, and doctors soon discovered the extent of the abuse inflicted on the unconscious child.
“This was the senseless death of a helpless little boy who was left in the defendant’s care,” said Brooklyn District Atttorney Eric Gonzalez. “There is no excuse ever, under any circumstances, for beating a child. Today’s sentence is a small measure of justice for Jaden and his devastated family.”
Jaden was taken off life support on Dec. 3, 2016, and died within five minutes.