Florida judge who will sentence Brendan Depa goes easy in separate case

A Florida judge who will soon sentence Brendan Depa — the autistic teen who beat his teacher unconscious over a Nintendo Switch — went easy on two young defendants last week in an unrelated high profile case.

Judge Terrence Perkins sentenced Gabriella Alo, 18, to six years in prison for sadistically beating a terrified teen victim, then running over a good Samaritan who tried to intervene, according to Flagler Live.

The site reported how Alo had amassed 764 behavioral infractions in just one quarter at her school before the January beatdown in Flagler County.

While prosecutors had recommended 15 years, Perkins — considered a balanced arbiter by local attorneys — noted Alo suffered from severe mental health issues and had expressed remorse.

He will now weigh similar considerations in the nationally scrutinized case of Depa, a hulking teen who punched and stomped former Matanzas High School teacher Joan Naydich more than a dozen times in February.

While Naydich has lobbied for Depa to face the maximum of 30 years behind bars, Perkins has the option of a sentence as mild as probation.

The traumatized teacher has said she still suffers both physically and mentally from the pummeling.

Lawyers for Depa — who battered Naydich after his Nintendo Switch was taken away — assert he suffers from severe autism and other disorders that mitigate his culpability in the viral attack, which was captured on school surveillance cameras.

Depa’s adoptive mother, Leane Depa, told NewsNation a jail term would constitute a “death sentence” for her son — and that he should never have been allowed into a conventional school setting.

Alo and her brother, prosecutors said, filmed their January assault in a local park and could be heard laughing and taunting their victim while kicking and punching him in front of jeering onlookers.

After leaving the scene for some period, they returned and resumed the attack.

Meanwhile, a woman and her mother who lived near the scene heard a commotion and stopped to investigate.

Mistaking Alo’s car for her brother’s, Kaitlin Dahme, a local waitress, ran towards the fracas, thinking her sibling was in danger.

Alo then jumped in her vehicle and ran Dahme over twice, shattering her ankle and injuring her leg.

Alo’s brother, 22-year-old Nicholas, was present for a portion of the beating and was in the car as it ran Dahme over. Perkins sentenced him to two years behind bars.

With time served and other factors, Gabriella Alo could be out in as little as four years.

“I can’t take it back, but if I could take it back, I definitely would,” she said in court tearfully, according to Flagler Live. “I want to make better decisions in the future.”

A psychologist testified that Alo had theastonishing number of behavioral incidents prior to the filmed assault.

Both she and her brother had been medicated since early childhood — and have both been cited for misconduct behind bars since their January arrests.