The student who beat and stomped his assistant teacher unconscious for taking away his Nintendo device in early 2023 was just sentenced to five years in prison.

Here’s more from WESH2:

The Flagler County student caught on video attacking a teacher’s assistant was sentenced to 5 years in prison on Tuesday after a full day in court.

Brendan Depa, 18, pleaded no contest in February 2023 after video showed him shoving, punching and kicking his paraprofessional after she took his video game away.

The video shows Joan Naydich being knocked unconscious

Depa, who was a special needs student at Matanzas High School, had his first sentencing hearing in May, but was delayed after the judge announced there were still several witness they had to go through.

At that hearing, Naydich took the stand to share that she has PTSD and suffers from anxiety as a result of the attack.

“Like everything was taken away from me that morning,” Naydich said on the stand. “At 10 o’clock that morning. Everything was taken away. My life will never be what it was before.”

Naydich confirmed that no one informed her about Depa’s condition or gave her strategies about how to manage and reprimand him to help avoid an attack like the one that happened.

In February, Depa’s mother told WESH 2 that Brendan came into her life through foster care. She said she wants people to know that he loves people.

I don’t think ‘special needs’ means what it used to mean back when I was growing up. If it did, I wouldn’t think there’d be a prison sentence at all. In any event I think five years is decent sentence, but for such a brutal attack i would have preferred something more akin to ten years.