Lawyer: Boy's accused killer visited LI
An undated photo of Levi Aron, the 35-year-old suspect who police said implicated himself in the killing of Leiby Kletzy, an 8-year-old Brooklyn boy. Credit: AP
The suspect in the murder of an 8-year-old Brooklyn boy told his lawyers that he had listened to music at Long Island karaoke clubs for a long time to drown out voices in his head, one of the attorneys said Monday.
The lawyer, Gerard Marrone of Middle Village, Queens, said Levi Aron, 35, seemed to have "diminished" mental capacity and an insanity defense is being strongly considered.
The lawyers said they interviewed the Brooklyn man Monday in a special psychiatric facility at Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan. They said they found him at times to be extremely introverted and uncommunicative when they asked him pointed questions about his life and the allegations that he killed Leiby Kletzky last week.
"He definitely has diminished [mental] capacity," Marrone said. Marrone said he did not know which Long Island karaoke clubs Aron frequented, or when.
A spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes had no comment on the possible insanity defense.
Aron is charged with murder and kidnapping. A psychological defense, commonly referred to as an insanity defense, is used to assert the accused had a mental condition that prevented him or her knowing the nature and consequences of criminal conduct or that it was wrong.
Aron was arrested by police Wednesday after investigators directed them to the dismembered remains of Leiby, whom Aron had met two days earlier after the boy became lost while walking home from day camp in Borough Park.
Aron said he picked up the boy and took him to a wedding in upstate Spring Valley on July 11 and then returned to Brooklyn. Police said they confirmed that Aron attended the wedding briefly, but haven't substantiated that Leiby was with him.
Marrone, who is co-counsel with Pierre Bazile of Huntington Station, said Aron was dressed in blue pajamas and without shoes as he met the lawyers in a private room at Bellevue. Aron, an Orthodox Jew, was being served kosher food and seemed to be physically in good shape, Marrone said.
A Brooklyn grand jury is considering murder, kidnapping and other charges against Aron, Hynes said last week.
An indictment could come Tuesday or Wednesday, said a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation.
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