American gets 15 years for killing Trini youth

AN AMERICAN national was sentenced to 15 years in jail on Monday after he pleaded guilty to killing a Trinidadian teenager nine months ago in New York. A Queens, New York courtroom was completely silent as the mother of a teen, who was hacked to death with a samurai sword, somehow found the strength in her heart to forgive her son’s killer.

“My son was dear to me,” said an emotional Cheryl Brutsche, 37, who stood four feet away from her son’s handcuffed killer, Michael Desiderio, 18, in Queens Supreme Court. “I look at you as a son,” Brutsche said to Desiderio. Desiderio, who wore a charcoal suit and wire-framed eyeglasses, bowed his head as Brutsche’s words of forgiveness resounded through Judge Dorothy Chin Brandt’s courtroom. “I forgive you and I pray to God for you, so you don’t do it (again) to someone else’s child,” said Brutsche.

Desiderio pleaded guilty in January to manslaughter in the mutilation death of 18-year-old Richard Richardson. On Monday, Chin Brandt sentenced him to 15 years in prison. When Desiderio pleaded guilty to killing the Trinidad native last month, he said the violence was fuelled by cocaine and alcohol. Desiderio killed his friend on June 13, 2004, inside a blood-soaked Maspeth apartment at 57-39 Maspeth Avenue,  prosecutors said. It started with a fight over a pillow. “I would like to apologise to the victim’s family,” said  Desiderio. “I’m very sorry for what has happened, and I would like to apologise to my family.” Forgiveness had its limits yesterday, as Richardson’s aunt Margaret Rampersad seethed with anger. “I can’t be as forgiving as she is,” Rampersad said of Brutsche. “We lost a young kid. He was mutilated.”