Sex fiend gets maximum prison sentence for prostitute’s murder
A Manhattan judge slammed a murderous sex fiend with the maximum prison term Monday — saying the killer “richly deserves every minute of this sentence” — as the victim’s sister wept.
Justice Bonnie Wittner tossed Clarence Dean, 45, in prison for 25 years to life for the vicious killing of sex worker Kristine Yitref in a seedy Times Square hotel in 2007.
It took 10 years for the case to make it to trial — and only 25 minutes for a jury to convict the serial sex offender in December.
“I’ve tried a lot of homicide trials. I have. And this was one of the most brutal and depraved beatings and strangulations of someone for no reason at all,” Wittner said in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The judge blasted Dean for his lack of remorse, the brutality of the crime and the defense tactics that led to the decade-long trial delay.
Yitref’s sister, Casandra Johnson, sobbed as the sentence was handed down and whispered, “Thank you.”
In an emotional victim-impact statement, Johnson told the court how her sister, an aspiring model and actress, moved from Yakama, Wash., to New York because “she was destined for great things.”
Johnson recalled how Yitref was once a “driven, hard-working, beautiful young woman” who had modeled for Nordstrom, put herself through Parsons School of Design and played the violin.
But that small town girl got lost in the big city and Yitref’s life spiraled out of control, leading her to prostitution, she said.
“I’m here to tell you she wasn’t trash,” Johnson said as Dean, sitting at the defense table, refused to look in her direction. “She didn’t deserve to die like that, put in a garbage bag.”
Assistant District Attorney Robert Ferrari called Dean a conman who “has been imposing his special brand of misery on society for the last 20 years.”
Authorities never learned what sent Dean into a murderous rage at the Hotel Carter that night, but he broke Yitref’s breast bone, stomped on her torso and strangled her with his hands and a piece of rubber.
“Almost every part of her body was attacked,” the judge said.
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Dean put the naked corpse in a garbage bag and shoved it under the mattress where it was later discovered by cleaning staff.
The killer has a long rap sheet that spans six states, including a conviction for the sex assault of a child in Florida and a pending case for the rape of a woman in Alabama, prosecutors said.
In a videotaped statement, Dean claimed that he acted in self-defense after Yitref’s pimp burst into his room and the two tried to rob him — a story the judge called “ludicrous.
The ten-year trial delay was one of the longest in New York City history and circled around whether controversial bite-mark evidence could be admitted at trial.
Dean “maintains his innocence,” his lawyer, Sean Maher, told the judge.