The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
70 YEARS BEHIND BARS FOR MORENO
Father given maximum sentence for revenge killing of infant son by dropping him from 100-foot bridge
MIDDLETOWN » Twenty-threeyear-old Tony Moreno was sentenced to spend the next 70 years behind bars for the murder of his infant son, whom he dropped off a bridge 100 feet over the Connecticut River two years ago, sending the 7-month-old plummeting to his death.
Calling it a “heinous act,” Judge Elpedio N. Vitale issued his sentence Wednesday morning in Superior Court in Middletown after an hourlong hearing. Moreno sat, in a dark-blue suit and with a closely shorn head, staring straight ahead at the defense table throughout, his left hand supporting his chin as he had done during his five-day trial in February.
Those present heard heart-wrenching statements from the family of Aaden Moreno, who died July 5, 2015, in that fall from the Arrigoni Bridge at the hands of his father.
The boy’s body was recovered two days later by kayakers 14 miles away, near the East Haddam Swing Bridge.
Moreno was convicted of murder and risk of injury to a child in February for killing his baby in retaliation for the boy’s mother, Adrianne Oyola, ending their relationship.
The boy was awake when he was on the bridge, Vitale told the courtroom.
“There was no way to know what your son was feeling or experiencing at the point he went into the water,” Vitale said to Moreno.
“I do know” that he died of a skull fracture and drowning, “and that the overwhelming evidence demonstrated that you intentionally (threw) Aaden off that bridge to kill him, and that you succeeded, and that you did so to exact revenge on Ms. Oyola,” Vitale said before he issued his judgement.
Moreno was given 60 years on the murder charge and an additional 10 years for risk of injury to a minor. Vitale also issued a restraining order through Jan. 1, 2097, preventing Moreno from contacting or harassing Oyola.
There was no talk of parole.
“Not only did you violently and intentionally kill your 7-month-old son but you taunted his mother as you committed the act with text messages that were aptly described as demonic — just so you could add to her unfathomable grief,” Vitale said.
Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Eugene Calistro outlined the facts of his case, characterizing those texts Moreno sent to Oyola on the Arrigoni bridge in the moments leading up to the boy’s death as “callous and scornful.
“Robert Frost once wrote that three words sum up everything he learned in life: ‘It goes on,’” he began.
“For 7-month-old Aaden Moreno, it will not go on. It was cut way too short by his biological father.”
Oyola’s life, Calistro said, has been irretrievably altered by the events of that tragic night as she continues to suffer a host of mental, social and physical repercussions.
“She experiences mood swings, she has a short fuse, gets mad at the drop of a hat. She has struggled with mental health issues since childhood, which are now exacerbated; she’s angry, bitter all the time, has social anxiety, depression, PTSD, she’s unable to sleep for more than a few hours, eating is a struggle — she has no appetite,” Calistro told the judge.
He relayed a traumatic nightmare Oyola had recently.
“She heard a baby cry and woke up dazed, she started screaming to her mother, ‘Tell him (Tony) to stop making him (her baby) cry!’
“She said her mother had to rock her back to sleep.”
Defense attorney Norm Pattis argued for the mandatory minimum sentence for his client’s murder conviction, paraphrasing Jesse Jackson, as he had during trial, that “a man is not the sum of one moment.
“Twenty-five years is more than enough,” he told Vitale. “There’s no indication he would offend again.”
The court determines a sentence by considering five principals, Calistro told those in the gallery, among them retribution and “ensuring that this horrific crime never occurs again in this society at the hands of this defendant” or a similar crime by another.
“Are there copycats out there? Is there a rash of fathers killing their sons?” Pattis asked the court. “It’s ludicrous to suggest,” he said, pleading for leniency.
Oyola, her mother, Paula, and a close friend read letters to the court to show the lasting effect Aaden’s murder has had on their family.
“I remember the way he would laugh, put his whole fist in his mouth ... but what I miss the most is the kisses and love. I missed his first steps, I missed him saying his first word,” said Oyola, who remained steely throughout her statement. “On July 5, you took my whole world from me.”
Her mother spoke next, calling Aaden her “beautiful, happy, chunky, glorious baby boy,” as she broke into tears
“I know Aaden and his mima will meet as God as promised,” she told Moreno.
“May God be with you for the rest of your life and I will keep praying you realize what you’ve done to my family and yours,” Paula Oyola said.
Pattis called up a couple who lived next door to Moreno since he was 11. The wife testified that “the person you see is very different than the person we experienced in our lives over 10 to 12 years. I saw him love his son every day. He was the most protective person I know,” she said.
Slowly, Moreno’s mother Denise Moreno made her way to the defense table, her son at her left.
It took her more than a minute to compose herself well enough to say her name and begin speaking. Once she did, she wept, her hands wringing a tissue she used to blot her eyes.
As his mother spoke, Tony Moreno faced the judge, weeping silently, never looking over at her.
“I listen to people call him a monster. That’s not the person I gave birth to,” Denise Moreno said. “My family has struggled, as Adrianne’s has. There has been very little mercy shown to my family in public,” she said.
She acknowledged her son’s flaws. “There’s no denying that. I truly believe he had intention to give Aaden to me because he could not hurt him,” Denise Moreno said.
She turned to take her seat and Pattis, who supported her with his arm as she testified, kissed her on the forehead.
Pattis then began reading from his mitigation plea in such a quiet voice, few in the gallery could hear his words. He told Vitale that Tony Moreno had lost his father at 6, “his best source of unconditional love,” in an industrial accident.
In pleading for a reduced sentence, Pattis said: “The criminal justice system of ours is insane in the way that it turns out punishment. It reflects something in ourselves we dare not look at.”
When given his opportunity to speak on his behalf, Tony Moreno declined.
Denise Moreno was first to leave the courthouse after the trial ended. She went up to a television news reporter, shook her hand, and briefly thanked the media for being fair to her son.
Pattis walked out to the street and to the courthouse garage wordlessly, declining to speak to reporters.
“Vitale focused in on the most pertinent text messages that were nothing but scornful and callous and mean and that’s how they came across,” Calistro said outside the courthouse. “Imagine on being at the other end of those, receiving them and wondering ‘what is going on? Where is my child?’
And then just seconds later: ‘He’s dead and soon I will be too.’ That’s just unimaginable.”
Oyola read her statement to reporters. “Justice has been served. I feel bad for Denise Moreno — she did the best she could with her son. It is not her fault,” Oyola said.
“She’s probably one of the greatest women I’ve ever met,” State’s Attorney Peter McShane said. “She really is incredible — what she has to face every day.”
“She’s been a class act,” Calistro added. “Very courageous lady.”