A coldblooded young killer dozed off yesterday as a judge compared him to a haywire machine before sentencing the fiend to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the gruesome murders of three people on the Lower East Side.
“It’s beyond me how a human can get so flawed and so out of sync,” Judge Edward McLaughlin told 21-year-old Steven Santos in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“It is difficult for me to challenge and lecture and insult and vilify and castigate Mr. Santos, because for whatever reason, the dials don’t function, the gauges are mis-set.”
Listening were family and friends of the people Santos killed while burglarizing their Grand Street apartments on June 12, 2002 – Ray D’Amelio, 49, and his downstairs neighbors, Larry and Sara Sprung, both in their 80s.
Santos, who was convicted last month, broke into D’Amelio’s apartment first, shot him as he lay sleeping, then watched a porn tape and drank whiskey there.
Afterward, he broke into the Sprung residence, killed the couple, violated Sara Sprung’s body with candles and stuffed blank checks in her dead husband’s mouth.
He was caught as he fled.
D’Amelio’s sister, Joan Belinc, told the judge that her brother was a simple man who had a positive effect on other people.
“I want everybody in this room, including Steven Santos, to know Ray. He made you feel like you were the only one in the room.” Belinc said.
D’Amelio’s nephew, Michael D’Amelio, said, “I’ve cried endless tears since June 12, 2002 – They are not enough . . . Every day I feel pain.”
And the Sprung’s nephew, Rabbi Yaakov Sprung, told the judge that “there can be no justice as long as the person who committed that [crime] is given life, while my uncle and aunt are dead.”
Santos answered, “Not at all” when asked by the judge if he had anything to say before being sentenced.