Rejecting an attorney's impassioned plea for lenience, a judge on Friday refused to budge from the 20-year sentence he gave five months ago to Lon Adams, the Metairie man convicted of killing his elderly father, whose skeletal remains were found two years later in his bed.
A 12-person jury convicted Adams, 60, of manslaughter in the death of Leroy Adams Sr., 81, who suffered more than 30 breaks in his ribs and neck bones. Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office deputies investigating a missing persons complaint found the elder Adams' body on June 3, 2008, in a second-floor bedroom of Lon Adams' High Avenue home.
Adams, who achieved a lieutenant colonel's rank in the Army Reserve while earning a master's degree, juggling a civilian career with a telephone company and raising a son alone, was transported to a Gretna courtroom from the Rayburn Correctional Institute in Angie this week, hoping that Judge Conn Regan of the 24th Judicial District Court would reconsider the 20-year sentence he handed down in December.
"It's not a sign of weakness to change your sentence," Adams' attorney Joe Raspanti told Regan. "It's a sign of wisdom."
Raspanti said he has spoken with four judges informally about the case, and each said they would have sentenced Adams to 10 years in prison because he had no criminal history, because of his age and because a court psychiatrist found Adams is not a threat to himself or society.
"Any more than that is a life sentence for this man," said Raspanti, who didn't name the judges.
Raspanti also pointed out that several jurors who convicted Adams said in affidavits the jury did not think he intentionally killed his father.
However, the jury found that because a death resulted from cruelty to the infirm, they had no choice but to convict Lon Adams of manslaughter, the jurors said. Adams was tried on a charge of second-degree murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence in prison upon conviction.
None of the jurors thought Lon Adams should have been sentenced to prison, Raspanti said. "In fact, some jurors thought he should go home that day," when the trial ended Sept. 25, Raspanti said.
Assistant District Attorney Jackie Maloney did not rebut Raspanti's request.
Regan was not moved. Of Raspanti's expert witness, who testified during the trial that Leroy Adams Sr. could have injured himself by rolling out of bed, Regan said he found it "to be the most ludicrous testimony I have ever heard."
Regan said he would have been more lenient had Adams admitted he "snapped." Instead, Regan noted, Adams denied harming his father.
"What we heard was somebody who denied, denied, denied," Regan said. "I did not believe his testimony. That's why I came up with the sentence I did."
Paul Purpura can be reached at email@example.com or 504.826.3791.