An East Boston man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for killing his alleged abuser. Credit: Jenn Vargas/Flickr
An East Boston man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after admitting he killed an older man who allegedly molested him as a child.
Marco Tulio Flores, 19, pleaded guilty in Suffolk Superior Court on Thursday to voluntary manslaughter, arson, and attempting to escape. He was sentenced to serve 15 years of probation after he is released from prison.
Flores had been facing first-degree murder charges for the May 22, 2011 killing of Jaime Galdamez.
Prosecutors said Flores, who was 17 at the time, strangled Galdamez with a metal dog chain and then set the 28-year-old man’s apartment on fire, after getting Galdamez to confess on videotape that he had molested Flores.
Flores’s lawyer, James Budreau, said his client acted because he thought Galdamez might abuse Flores’s young nephew.
Galdamez, a family friend, sexually abused Flores for several years, starting when he was 9 years old, prosecutors said.
“We hope that a 15-year sentence is enough to say we’re not going to give vigilante justice a pass,” Assistant District Attorney Ian Polumbaum said, according to the Boston Globe. “I know there are people out there saying, ‘Let him go, don’t prosecute him at all.’… You can’t go out and kill somebody, no matter what he did to you.'”
Polumbaum said computers that Flores took from Galdamez’s apartment contained child pornography and chatroom transcripts in which Galdamez discussed his attraction to young boys, mentioning Flores.
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