Plainview mom Veronica Cirella gets 12 years in prison for killing 8-year-old disabled daughter Julie Cirella

A Plainview woman who admitted killing her disabled 8-year-old daughter got a 12-year prison sentence Friday, four years after the child's body was discovered with a note saying the mother wanted to "give her back to heaven."

Julie Cirella, who had cerebral palsy, was supposed to be a flower girl in an uncle's wedding on July 23, 2011. That day, authorities instead found the child dead in her family's basement apartment.

Authorities said her mother, Veronica Cirella, had written a suicide note, and was lying nearby with a cord wrapped around her neck.

"The one person in this world that should have protected her, killed her," Nassau Assistant District Attorney Jessica Cepriano said in court.

Judge Philip Grella in Mineola sentenced Cirella, 34, under the terms of a first-degree manslaughter plea agreement Nassau prosecutors struck in May. She had been facing a murder charge that could have sent her to prison for up to 25 years to life.

The victim's father, Joseph Cirella, was in Nassau County Court in Mineola with other family members to support the defendant. He later called it "totally ridiculous" that she was going to prison.

"She was amazing," he said of his daughter, adding: "Her mother was the best caregiver; could do things I couldn't do."

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Law enforcement officials initially alleged Veronica Cirella gave Julie a piece of M&M's candy, knowing it could inflame the girl's peanut allergy. They said she failed to take the right steps to save the girl when she had a reaction to the food.

But prosecutors later said they believed Cirella killed her daughter by asphyxiating her, saying the medical examiner found Julie died that way but couldn't determine what caused it.

Defense attorney William Keahon told the judge Friday that "the autopsy can't give us the cause of death."

He called Julie a "ray of sunshine" who didn't let her disability get in her way, and said the child's father was among paternal relatives who believed Veronica Cirella was "a great mother who adored Julie" and wouldn't intentionally cause her death.

After court, Keahon called the case "a tragedy for every member of the family."

The Hauppauge attorney said no peanut residue was found in Julie's body, and the medical examiner decided she died either of an asthma attack, acid reflux or asphyxiation. Keahon also said food was found in the child's throat.

Keahon said his client told him she couldn't go through a trial, and suffers from an undisclosed disability that requires constant medication.

"They have no proof whatsoever by way of autopsy or anything else to indicate that Julie died because of a criminal act," Keahon said.

Brendan Brosh, a spokesman for acting District Attorney Madeline Singas, said "a mountain of evidence was presented to the defendant and her attorney, and in the face of it all, she decided to plead guilty."Cirella told Newsday in a 2012 interview that she'd "never ever" hurt her daughter, and was so grief-stricken when she found Julie dead that she swallowed pills and tried to strangle herself.

In her note, she'd also written of domestic issues with Julie's father, from whom she was estranged, saying she couldn't risk Julie being mistreated.

"I don't mind going to hell," the mother wrote, "because I took my life to give her a better life which is in heaven where she can be free!"