6'6" schoolboy breaks his silence after beating up female school aide who took his Nintendo Switch

By Dominic Yeatman For Dailymail.Com 07:12 15 Aug 2024, updated 16:38 16 Aug 2024

• Giant schoolboy learns his fate after beating up tiny teaching assistant  

The hulking teenager who battered a Florida teaching assistant unconscious for taking his toy away has apologized after being sentenced to five years in prison.

Brendan Depa, then 17, left Joan Naydich, 59, with concussion, hearing loss and five broken ribs in a prolonged attack at Palm Coast's Matanzas High School in February last year.

Judge Terence Perkins said he had not heard a word of remorse from the 270 pound teen as he jailed him last week. But Depa's current tutor has produced an apology he says the autistic student wrote while in custody. 

'I deeply regret allowing my emotions to get the best of me and letting things happen the way that they did,' he writes. 

'In a choice between letting this incident destroy, define, or strengthen me, I have chosen to let it strengthen me.'

The 6ft 6ins pupil became enraged when Naydich asked a teacher to confiscate the Nintendo Switch Depa had been playing with.

He called her a bi**h and a wh**e when he learned of her request, spitting at her before following her out of a classroom and launching his brutal attack.

Surveillance footage recorded Naydich completely limp on the floor after Depa knocked her unconscious but the enraged student punched her in the head and back another 15 times before letting up.

Naydich, a mother of two, had called for her teenaged attacker to be locked up for the maximum sentence of 30 years.

'Brendan Depa's actions that day has caused me to lose a job that I had for almost 19 years, lose my financial security, lose my health insurance,' she told the court.

In his note, Depa wrote: 'I am extremely sorry for injuring Miss Joan so severely, and I am happy to see the injuries I inflicted did not leave any permanent scars or bruises.'

But Naydich said she is unlikely ever to fully recover from the beating.

'Every day is a challenge,' she said. 'I have lived every day since with the repercussions of it, the assault of it, whether it be hearing loss that I have, vision loss, headaches.'

But the decision from Judge Terence Perkins to give Depa 25 years less than that could have do with the exculpatory testimony that came from his mother and arguments from his defense team.

Leann Depa, his adoptive mother, said she had warned the school about her son's laundry list of triggers. According to her, 'electronics' was his biggest trigger.

'I had told the school that being hungry was a trigger, that noise was a trigger, that being told no was a trigger, that being corrected in front of other people was a trigger, and electronics was a huge trigger,' she said on the stand.

Lawyers for Depa have filed a separate lawsuit against the school district for negligence, describing him as 'a ticking time bomb.'

The letter which tutor Gene Lopes shared with NewsNation's Ashleigh Banfield, claims that 'what I did should not define who I am'.

'I made a mistake - one I will never let happen again - and I am sorry,' it reads.

'During my incarceration, I have learned coping skills to ensure something like this never happens again. 'I have grown and matured in ways otherwise impossible, making me not happy I have been incarcerated, but nonetheless grateful.'

Pictures released after the beatdown show gashes on the aide's cheek, bruising around the eyes, one blood shot eye, a dent in her nose and a tear at the back of her ear.

Naydich said the worst injuries are internal and that the attack deeply affected her cognitive functions.

'Unfortunately, a lot of my injuries that are not visible I'm going to have for the rest of my life,' she said.

Depa's attorneys tried to turn it around on her, claiming that Naydich failed to address the autistic boy's unique needs and wasn't properly trained to handle him.

Kurt Teifke, one of Depa's lawyers, reportedly referred back to prior testimony that suggested the assault was a manifestation of his disability.

'It's not his fault,' Teifke said.

Judge Perkins didn't buy it, citing the brutality captured in the video and adding that Depa's attack on Naydich was not an isolated incident.

'It captures the senseless, extreme violence in a very troubling way,' Perkins said, commenting on the video.

In his sentencing, Perkins also cited testimony from a state witness, a psychologist, who said Depa knew what he did was wrong.

Depa's mother pleaded with the judge to let her son serve house arrest.

'I knew Brendan and I knew his triggers and I knew his needs and his strengths and I beg you to let him come home with me,' she said.

After her son was sent to prison, described the verdict as a 'death sentence' and told reporters he was being punished for being black, large and disabled.

'He's scared,' she told NewsNation. 'To have your child call and cry and say 'I don't want to die' — it's awful.'

Once he finishes his five year sentence, Depa will be subject to 15 years of supervised probation.