MONTREAL – Nikolas Stefanatos will be out of jail in 16 months.
On Tuesday, Stefanatos was handed a 57-month sentence for throwing cleaning acid on his former girlfriend, Tanya St. Arnauld, following a domestic dispute in 2012.
“It’s not much, sixteen months, it’s a year-and-a-half he’ll be out walking about,” St. Arnauld said after sentencing.
“It took me longer to get better.”
He has already gotten credit for serving 41 months — but actually spent just 27 months in jail. A defendant gets credit for time served at a rate of a day-and-a-half for each day while in detention.
Although Stefanatos’ attorney said her client was extremely remorseful for the horrific attack, St-Arnauld said her ex-boyfriend got off lightly.
Nonetheless, she said, “it’s a step toward ending this horror story.”
Philip Schneider, an attorney contacted by Global News who was not involved in the case, said that the sentence is within the range for the kind of crime Stefanatos committed, but added “it’s a very violent act. It’s not simple assault. It’s not simply assault with a weapon, it’s assault with acid,” he said.
“I can’t think of a more horrendous assault than that.”
St. Arnauld suffered third degree burns to 20 per cent of her body during the 2012 attack; the majority of which were to her head and upper body. She wore a red tuque at Tuesday’s sentencing hearing to hide stitches from a recent procedure she said were supposed to be removed the following day.
Crown Prosecutor Erin Kavanagh said that while she agrees with the sentence Stefanatos received, “whether he received one year, 10 years, 20 years or whatever, it would never bring her back.”
READ MORE: Quebec acid attack victim gets surprise on U.S. talk show
Stefanatos pleaded guilty to aggravated assault last month.
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