Gigi Jordan Sentenced To 18 Years For Killing 8-Year-Old Autistic Son

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Gigi Jordan, a former pharmaceutical executive and socialite convicted in the death of her autistic 8-year-old son, was sentenced Thursday to 18 years behind bars.

She faced five to 25 years at her sentencing in New York Criminal Court. In November, a jury accepted her claim that she acted during a state of "extreme emotional disturbance" and found her guilty of first-degree manslaughter, not the top count of murder. She claimed she tried to kill herself and wanted to spare her son, Jude Mirra, from a life of sexual abuse by his father.

The prosecution asked Judge Charles Solomon to hit Jordan, 54, with the maximum sentence, and her defense team argued for leniency.

The sentence includes five years Jordan has already served and some time off for good behavior.

Defense attorney Norman Siegel said he was not pleased with the sentence.

"Eighteen years means even with good behavior Ms. Jordan won't be out until July of 2025," he told CBS2's Dave Carlin.

Jordan addressed the judge saying, "I'll live with guilt for the rest of my life every day. Not one day goes by that I don't remember his beautiful face and his pain," 1010 WINS' Juliet Papa reported.

Jordan wiped away tears as she testified.

"My only way of surviving each day is to do something for children," she said.

"I'm trying to raise awareness about child abuse in children who are vulnerable like Jude."

But Solomon said he didn't believe anything Jordan said and that she remains a mystery to him, WCBS 880's Irene Cornell reported. He said there was no credible evidence that the child was ever sexually abused. The judge said the mother just couldn't accept that the boy was autistic and she has never said she was sorry.

"She had all the money in the world to help Jude," Solomon said. "Instead, she took his life."

In court Thursday, a video was played of Jude laughing and playing. The prosecutor said he did that to show the judge that this case is really about a boy who should still be alive.

In a jailhouse interview with CBS2 in October, Jordan said she killed her son with a poisonous cocktail of drugs, vodka and juice in a luxury hotel in midtown Manhattan in February 2010 out of "a mother's love."

Jordan assembled several of the city's top attorneys, including Ron Kuby. They said the mother was in the throes of fear and panic, based on her belief that her son was the victim of emotional physical and sexual abuse, inflicted on him by predators in his life.

Those accusations were never substantiated in court, but Jordan says she believed Jude faced a fate worse than death should she die.

"I wanted him to be safe and at peace at any cost," Jordan said.

In the interview, she said her biggest regret was her failed suicide on the night she killed her son.

"That was my intent, was to die that night," she said. "I had no reason to live after Jude's death."

"I died the night Jude died. My soul died that night," she said.

Jurors spent days reviewing evidence that showed what Jordan's state of mind was at the time she killed her Jude. The jury found that she had reason to believe that her ex-husband was going to kill her and that the boy's biological father, who she claimed sexually abused Jude for years, would gain custody of the child. She claimed she killed her son to spare him from a lifetime of "unimaginable suffering."

Trained as a nurse, Jordan went on to launch companies that administer drugs to patients in their home. After making an estimated $40 million, she left her career to travel the country seeking medical answers for her son.

Prosecutors alleged Jordan could not fix her son's autism so she killed him. But in court, Jordan insisted Jude was never a burden.

Jordan admitted on the witness stand that she gave Jude a fatal cocktail of prescription drugs in February 2010 at the Peninsula Hotel. Dr. Edward Barbieri, a forensic pharmacologist, told jurors he found extremely high levels of Xanax in the child's blood — 19 times what an adult would take. Barbieri said Jude also was fed a lot of Prozac and another sedative that reduces blood pressure, which was given to him at a deadly level of 20 to 40 times that of an adult dosage.

Despite that Jude was nonverbal, Jordan testified that the boy learned to communicate with her by typing on a laptop computer and BlackBerry. That was how, she said, he told her about the repeated abuse he endured, which had bizarre satanic elements – from being forced to drink blood and kill animals to being zapped with electricity.

The boy also typed a message saying he wanted to die, Jordan testified.

Jude's father denies the allegations of abuse and has never been charged. Her ex-husband has denied all her allegations and has sued her for slander.

"The poisoning and killing of an 8-year-old boy is a premeditated act of child abuse," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said Thursday. "After five years, justice has finally been served."

Jordan is expected to be transferred from Rikers Island to the Bedford Hills State Prison for Women to serve out her sentence.

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