Hispanic man beat his wife to death at a bus stop and his daughter asked the judge “to rot in jail”: sentence in New York

“I hope you rot in prison. I hate you so much, ”Elizabeth Aponte told her father Julio Aponte (65) during his sentencing hearing in the Manhattan Supreme Court, after pleading guilty to killing his wife by beating him at a bus stop in 2021 .

At the time of the brutal homicide, which occurred on the morning of June 14, 2021 in Washington Heights, Aponte, a Dominican, was a New York police traffic officer. On Wednesday he was sentenced to between 20 years and life in prison behind bars, while his daughter cried in the living room, he reported New York Post.

Aponte had pleaded guilty in June to one count of second-degree murder. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement this week that the life of Maria Kelly, 49, was taken “too soon. Julio Aponte faces significant liability for this horrific and horrifying attack. I hope this sentence brings a sense of relief, comfort and justice to Ms. Kelly’s family, friends and loved ones.”

Aponte originally thought he had killed his wife and fled on a motorcycle, police sources said. She initially survived the attack, but she died after spending four days hospitalized with severe head injuries at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center.

Shortly after the beating in the middle of the street at Fort Washington Ave. and West 163rd St. Aponte called 911 claiming that she had murdered her spouse because she had “cheated” him. But several witnesses to the incident had already called to report the brutal attack and the victim was already en route to the hospital with a severe head injury.

The victim went to that bus stop every day to go to work, according to the report. The crowbar used to hit her was later recovered wrapped in plastic at the scene, along with Aponte’s backpack.

Crimes of passion among Hispanics are a constant tragedy in New York and New Jersey. In April Carmelo Mendoza pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing his wife Yaquelin Collado during an argument while the woman’s daughter watched helplessly at her apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens (NYC) in 2020.

In February, César Santana was accused of killing his ex-partner Luz Hernández, a Dominican kindergarten teacher in Jersey City whose body was found in a shallow grave.

In September 2020, an Uber driver from Dominican Republic was stabbed to death by her husband in Queens. In August 2019, Carmen Iris Santiago, also a Dominican, was attacked by her ex-convict husband, from whom she was separated, in the living room. nails where he worked.

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