Completely Legal

UPDATE: To read more about this story, click here

See link below to read victim’s impact statement.

The mother of a New Rochelle man convicted of giving his girlfriend a lethal dose of heroin pleaded with a judge for leniency today, saying her son never meant to do harm.

The judge, however, said Paul Aveni deserved no sympathy and sentenced him to 15 years in state prison for causing the death of Angela Camillo after breaking into his mother’s home to do drugs.

A jury had convicted Aveni of criminally negligent homicide, second-degree burglary, criminal injection of a narcotic drug and contempt, all felonies, as well as misdemeanor drug possession.

Camillo died on Jan. 12, 2009, when Westchester prosecutors said Aveni bought four bags of heroin and drove with her to his mother’s house on Laurel Place.

They went into a bathroom, where Aveni injected himself with heroin and then injected his girlfriend after giving her a sedative. Aveni woke up in a bedroom around 9 p.m. and found his girlfriend unresponsive. He tried reviving her with a syringe filled with salt and water, and burned her body with a lighter to try to revive her, according to prosecutors.

After those attempts failed, authorities said, Aveni ran out of the bedroom and hid in an attic crawl space. His mother found Camillo and called 911. Police found Aveni coming out of the attic and arrested him.

The victim’s mother, Cheryl Camillo, said no prison sentence could be enough for the man who she said connived and manipulated her 25-year-old daughter, described as a loving and affectionate woman.

“She was snuffed out by this monster in the prime of her life,”  she said in court today as her other daughter, Christy Camillo, stood next to her.  “All of the joy in our life is gone forever.”

Aveni was charged with burglary because he violated a court order barring him from his mother’s home. He denied that he burglarized his mother’s home and rejected a plea deal by prosecutors that would have sent him to prison for five years.

In court today, Mary Aveni told the judge that she has fought for years to lift the order of protection to no avail. She said her son never stole from her and always had her permission to be at her home.

“Paul has a drug problem, but he is not a burglar,” she said.

Westchester County Judge Susan Cacace lifted the stay-away provision of the protective order, allowing Aveni’s mother to visit him in prison.

Aveni was convicted as a predicate violent felon because he had previous convictions for attempted burglary and attempted gun possession.

To read Cheryl Camillo’s full victim’s mpact statement, click here

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