Brooklyn butcher Levi Aron was sentenced today to 40 years to life in prison for murdering and dismembering an 8-year old boy, ending a gruesome chapter to one of the city’s most horrible crimes. 
 
 Aron showed little emotion as a Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Neil Firetog pronounced the sentence, the result of plea deal cut three weeks earlier. 
 
 During that guilty plea, Aron, 36, admitted that he abducted the lost boy, Leiby Kletzky, last summer, then smothered him and chopped up his body amid an intense search for the boy, who missed a turn on his way home from day camp. 
 
 Aron abducted Kletzky July 11, 2011 at 18th Avenue and Dahill Road, in Brooklyn. Aron then took the child to his apartment, at 466 East 2nd St., where he killed him, hacked his body into several parts and kept his feet in the freezer. 
 
 Leiby’s heartbroken parents, Nachman and Esther Kletzky, stayed away from the sentencing. They let the statement that they issued after Aron’s guilty plea speak for itself. 
 
 “They feel that justice has been done,” said Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a family friend. ““Every time the story appears, it brings them back to the day it happened.” 
 
 “It’s incredibly painful, incredibly difficult, so hopefully now the spotlight will move on and that’s what they want.” 
 
 Prosecutor Julie Rendelman spoke of the tragedy of a life cut painfully short. 
 
 “An innocent and angelic boy named Leiby Kletzky left his school and simply lost his way,” Rendelman said. “If he had run into any normal person he would have been safe.” 
 
 “Levi Aron, taking advantage, chose not to make Leiby safe, chose not to take him home to his loving family,” Rendelman said. “He made a choice that day. He could have let Leiby go, let him become a man and get married someday. He chose to take this boy’s life.” 
 
 Aron’s lawyer Howard Greenberg urged officials to protect his client in jail. 
 
 “If he’s not put in private custody while he’s in jail he’ll be murdered,” Greenberg said. “There’s a lot of sick and demented people in jail, so I worry for his life. His sentence is 40 years – not death.” 

 A New York City hardware store clerk who pleaded guilty to kidnapping, killing and dismembering a lost little boy was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years to life in prison. 
 
 FILE - In this Aug. 4, 2011 file photo, Levi Aron, accused of abducting and dismembering a Brooklyn boy, is arraigned in Brooklyn criminal court in New York. Aron is expected to be sentenced Wednesday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Levi Aron had pleaded guilty this month to lesser charges in a deal that spared him a criminal trial and the possibility of life in prison without parole. When asked Wednesday if he wanted to speak at his sentencing hearing, the 37-year old whispered "no." He will be eligible for parole in 40 years. 
 
 Aron wore a black yarmulke, bushy beard and orange prison jumpsuit, and kept his head down and eyes closed for much of the hearing. His attorneys said Aron suffered a head injury as a child that went untreated. 
 
 "As a child and a young man, he should have been treated for his mental illness," attorney Howard Greenberg said. Outside court, his attorneys said Aron is sorry but a public apology would seem false. 
 
 "He's sorry and he wished he hadn't done it," attorney Pierre Bazile said. 
 
 Aron admitted he kidnapped and killed 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky after the boy approached him on a Brooklyn street and asked for directions on July 11, 2011. The boy was Hasidic, an ultra-Orthodox version of Judaism, and the killing shook the tight-knit community in Borough Park, a safe and somewhat insular neighborhood home to one of the world's largest communities of Orthodox Jews outside Israel. Aron, who lived nearby, was Orthodox but not Hasidic. 
 
 Leiby's family did not attend the sentencing hearing. A prosecutor read a statement from his father, Nachman Kletzky, released at the guilty plea that said, "God did not abandon our son, nor our family, for one second." 
 
 "There is no way one can comprehend or understand the pain of losing a child," he wrote. "Esther and I faced this unspeakable tragedy last year when our little boy Leiby was ruthlessly taken from us. ... A day doesn't pass without our thinking of Leiby _ but today we close the door on this one aspect of our tragedy and seek to remember only the gifts that God has bestowed." 
 
 The statement was previously read to the news media after the Aug. 9 guilty plea by state assemblyman Dov Hikind, who represents Borough Park and served as a spokesman for the family. 
 
 Leiby got lost on his walk home from a religious day camp. It was the first time he was allowed to walk alone, and he was supposed to travel about seven blocks to meet his mother but missed his turn. 
 
 Barely two days later later, detectives found the boy's severed feet, wrapped in plastic, in Aron's freezer. A cutting board and three bloody carving knives were found in the refrigerator. The rest of the boy's body was discovered in bags inside a red suitcase in a trash bin about a mile from Aron's apartment. His legs had been cut from his torso. 
 
 The medical examiner's office said Leiby had been drugged then suffocated. 
 
 Aron was taken into custody and an unnerving story unfolded about the hours he spent with the boy. Authorities said Aron promised to take Leiby home, but instead he brought the boy upstate to Monsey, N.Y. where he attended a wedding before bringing him back to his apartment. The two watched television before going to sleep. The following morning, Aron left for work at the hardware store, leaving Leiby alone nearly all day in the home. 
 
 Meanwhile, a massive search was conducted by his family and friends in the community. When Aron noticed fliers plastered on lampposts with the boy's photo, he says he panicked, went home and suffocated the boy and dismembered him. 
 
 Aron has said little during court appearances, often looking ahead with a vacant stare, or down at the ground. His attorneys had planned to mount a defense that he was not guilty by reason of mental defect, bolstered by a reported obtained by The Associated Press that said Aron had an adjustment disorder and a personality disorder with schizoid features. "His mood is neutral, practically blank," the psychologist wrote. "The only time he seems to show any emotional response is when he is asked difficult questions about the reason for his incarceration." 
 
 During his guilty plea two weeks ago, Aron spoke barely above a whisper. He expressed no remorse and only hinted at motive: At one point he told the judge he felt "panic" when he found out there was a frantic search on for the boy. 
 
 The judge asked him what he decided to do, and he responded simply, "Smother." He also answered yes when asked if he had bound and drugged Leiby. 
 
 Leiby's family has filed a lawsuit against Aron's father, who owned the building where his son lived when the boy was killed. They argue that the father should have known something unspeakable was happening under his roof and could have saved the boy if he tried.
– A 37-year-old Brooklyn man got 40 years to life today for kidnapping, murdering, and dismembering an 8-year-old boy who got lost on his way home from religious day camp, reports the AP. Levi Aron had previously pleaded guilty in the death of Leiby Kletzky to avoid a trial and the possibility of a life sentence without parole. As it is, he won't be eligible until he's 77. The New York Post's lead paragraph: "Let him rot!"