Defense: Dad to blame for woman's murder

There is someone who is even more responsible for a North Patchogue woman's death than the man convicted of strangling her -- her grieving father, the defendant's lawyer said Tuesday.

"I don't want to disparage his pain," said William Ferris, attorney for convicted killer Chad Johnson, 23, as he criticized the victim's father, James Papain.

"Where was he before March 24, 2010?" Ferris asked, noting the day Jennifer Papain disappeared shortly after meeting Johnson to have sex for money.

Johnson, of Medford, was convicted of second-degree murder in November. He led Suffolk detectives to Jennifer Papain's shallow grave off the Long Island Expressway near his home and signed a statement that said he choked her to death when she wouldn't refund half his $80 fee when he didn't finish a sex act in time.

Suffolk County Court Judge Gary Weber sentenced Johnson to 25 years to life Tuesday, the day Papain would have turned 28.

James Papain told Weber he was fully aware of what his daughter was doing. Like him, she struggled with drug addictions, and that day he and one of her pimps drove her to her last appointment in Bay Shore.

"She resorted to something that I am ashamed of," he said, but he angrily denied Ferris' suggestion that his daughter simply died of a drug overdose in Johnson's presence. The drugs found in her body were trace amounts from prior use, he said.

"Get it right with God," Papain told Johnson. "Get it right, or you're going to hell."

Johnson tearfully said the statement he signed was "an outright lie," acknowledging only that he buried Jennifer Papain.

"What I've done was not murder," he said. "I honestly didn't kill her."

Weber said the case shows that drug use and prostitution are not victimless crimes, and he noted that Johnson has a criminal history that includes choking other women.

"As for Mr. Johnson, the defendant is a murderer who thinks all he is in need of is anger management," Weber said.

Later, James Papain said he tried to talk his daughter out of prostitution, but he could do only so much.

"She's 26 years old," he said. "It's not like she was a child. Even that day, in the car, I said, 'Do you know what you're doing?' "

Papain said it was absurd to think that Johnson buried her and led police to her grave, but didn't kill her.

"He got what he justly deserved," he said.