Classmate gets 35 years in FAU student killing

Maximino Acosta testified he’ll never see his murdered son again.

“With the court’s permission, I would like to ask Nicholas Acosta to please stand up,” Acosta said Thursday. “Nick, can you please stand up?”

He glanced around the full courtroom. Everyone was seated silently. “No, he cannot stand up,” he said, breaking down into tears as he left the lectern.

The hearing was held for Donovan Malik Henry, 20, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison for his role in the killing of his Florida Atlantic University classmate, 19-year-old Nicholas Acosta.

Circuit Judge Krista Marx said she believed Henry was the one who engineered the Dec. 29, 2015, robbery that led to the murder.

“On that date, you chose to throw away your life,” she said. “I believe you are the one who planned it, and if not for you it would not have happened.”

Henry said nothing while being sentenced. He stood wearing a navy jail jumpsuit as he looked toward the ground.

Henry was one of three people charged in the killing. Police have said another defendant, Alexander Gillis, was the shooter at Boca Raton’s University Park Apartments, in the 100 block of NW 20th St., in what they say was a robbery turned deadly.

Acosta was shot after he and his girlfriend were ordered to the ground in the unit they shared with another roommate.

During the trial last month, jurors heard testimony from Henry, as well as from Acosta’s girlfriend, Kayla Bartosiewicz, and one of Henry’s alleged accomplices, Rodrick Woods.

Bartosiewicz recalled how five men barged into the apartment and demanded they get on the floor. She testified that Alexander Gillis waved a Glock as he yelled: “You think I’m kidding? You think this is a game?” She testified that Gillis shot Acosta twice, without giving him a chance to get on the floor.

During his trial, Henry proclaimed his innocence, saying the gunman threatened and forced him to comply with demands, including driving him away from the crime scene.

Woods testified against Henry, saying he rallied the group of friends to rob Acosta, driving them to his off-campus apartment and tricking him into letting them inside under the ruse of a drug buy.

Surveillance footage shown in the trial corroborated Woods’ testimony, prosecutors said, showing an unmasked Henry ushering his disguised accomplices to the elevator leading to Acosta’s apartment.

Henry said he was complying with the gunman’s demands and that he was held at gunpoint immediately before the burglary.

Henry was the first defendant to go to trial in the robbery and killing. Woods pleaded guilty to seconddegree murder in July and is awaiting his sentence in jail. Alexander and Adonis Gillis’ trials are set for later this year, prosecutor Reid Scott said.

A fifth suspect has yet to be identified.

Henry’s attorney, Scott Skier, argued before the sentencing that Henry was a minor accomplice in a robbery gone wrong.

Henry did not have a criminal background and could become a productive member of society after serving his time, Skier said. He asked for a sentence of 15 years followed by a period of probation.

In addition to Acosta’s father, his sister Lisette Lopez spoke on behalf of her younger brother, reading a letter the family had written to the court.

“I know the sentencing won’t bring back our Nicholas,” she said. “But what it will do is keep [Henry] from ever taking another family’s child.”

Maximino Acosta told the Sun Sentinel after Henry’s conviction last month that the holidays won’t ever be the same. This past Christmas was Maximino’s first without his son.

“We couldn’t even put the tree up this year,” he said. “It was always Nick’s job to put the star on top because he was the tallest one in the family.”

Nicholas Acosta was 6 feet 3, his father said. The family would have celebrated his birthday on Jan. 10. He would have been 21.

Henry turned 20 on Dec. 30. He won’t get out of prison until he is 55 years old.

“No parent should go through this,” Maximino Acosta said. “But they [Henry’s family] still get to have their son. They get to visit him.”

Now, Acosta’s family visits Nicholas every Sunday at the cemetery. “At least we know now that he won’t do that to anyone else’s kid,” he said.

Donovan Henry was sentenced Thursday in the killing of Nicholas Acosta.