Lawyers for a hulking Florida teenager who broke five of a teacher’s ribs during a beatdown over a video game are blaming the school district and the victim for the violence.
In court records, lawyers for Brendan Depa called their client a “ticking time bomb” and blamed Flagler County Public Schools for doing nothing to disarm him.
Depa faces up to 30 years in prison after pleading no contest to charges related to the February 2023 attack. Caught on video, Depa, who is reportedly autistic and who goes 6-foot-6 and weighs 270 pounds, brutally battered teacher Joan Naydich in a hallway at Matanzas High School.
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He slammed her to the floor and kicked and punched her, leaving Naydich with five broken ribs, a concussion, and hearing loss.
He is expected to be sentenced on Wednesday, May 1.
His lawyers, however, argue the school district and Naydich deserve blame for the attack, which occurred after Naydich threatened to confiscate Depa’s Nintendo Switch game after he refused to comply with her demand to put it away.
In a recent court filing, the lawyers said, “The district should be held to account for its failures, which have forever changed the trajectory of this young man’s life.”
Depa was diagnosed with an emotional and behavioral disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, mood disorder, ADHD, and an autism spectrum disorder.
And he had a history of assaulting staff and students when he got upset. He had recorded incidents of spitting on a student, threatening another, leaving class without permission, and grabbing a female employee. He was also known to smash school property when upset.
Although disciplined for such aggressive acts, Depa was not placed in a restrictive environment, nor was he given, despite being eligible, an individualized education plan, or IEP, which would have provide him a board-certified behavior analyst.
The lawyers wrote in court records that “the school did not seem to have any control over B.D., and B.D. was allowed to do whatever he wanted with little to no intervention or consequences.”
“To allow B.D. to continue to escalate only led to the incident where the paraprofessional was harmed, and B.D. was arrested,” they added.
“Had these issues been addressed in real time, B.D. would not have harmed the paraprofessional and would not have been arrested and facing significant time incarcerated.”
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“B.D. was a ticking time bomb,” they stated.
That bomb exploded when Naydich chastised Depa in front of his classmates. After she threatened to seize his Nintendo Switch, they argued, and he spit on her. When she left the classroom to report him for assault, he followed her and proceeded to attack her.
The teen’s lawyers want him to receive “compensatory education” and funding to cover his admittance into a behavioral therapeutic school for students with emotional disorders.
For her part, Naydich supports the maximum sentence.
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