The teacher's aide who was tackled and beaten on video back in February has no interest in a lesser case for her attacker, who is now 18. Back in February, Inside Edition posted this video with the caption: "In Flagler County, Florida, a 17-year-old student at Matanzas High School is alleged to have ambushed and physically attacked a teacher's aide, leaving her unconscious, according to police"
The attacker, Brendan Depa, risks a fairly steep punishment considering he has a record of violence. He was charged with a first-degree felony as an adult after the video above went all over the Internet. There may have been hope of a lighter sentence being agreed on in negotiations, but a report on Flagler Live suggests the victim has no interest in a lesser sentence for her attacker. The report said:
Depa appeared in court today for a pre-trial, alongside Kurt Teifke, his attorney. Teifke asked for an Oct. 30 plea hearing, and a sentencing hearing yet to be scheduled. Teifke did not elaborate. There is no agreed plea deal between the two sides, leaving it to what would be an open plea, meaning that Depa will leave it in Circuit Judge Terence Perkins’s hands to decide what his penalty ought to be. He can face anywhere from probation to 30 years in prison. Even though he was charged as an adult, the judge can also opt to sentence him as a juvenile.
Depa was initially charged as a juvenile after assaulting Joan Naydich, a paraprofessional assigned to Depa’s special education class. Depa is autistic (a detail that may have been central to the Feb. 21 incident, but that has no bearing on Florida’s sentencing guidelines). There was a conflict over Depa’s allowance to use an electronic game at a particular point, and there are still questions over whether school staffers appropriately handled the matter when it first arose. As Depa was ordered not to use the game toward the end of a class and staffers discussed the issue in front of him, his anger rose, and he eventually followed Naydich out of the classroom, in to a hallway.
There, in an incident captured on surveillance video (without sound), Depa is seen violently shoving Naydich to the ground, then pummeling an apparently unconscious Naydich mercilessly until school staffers pull him off of her. In bodycam video the Sheriff’s Office released of his arrest, Depa is heard cussing out the paraprofessional as others were tending to her. She was hospitalized and released, but has since shown no interest in mitigating what penalties Depa may face.
