Aug 30, 2017 4 min read

A state prison inmate previously ordered to life in prison for his role in the 1993 slaying of an elderly couple during a robbery at their Cecil Township home was given a new sentence Wednesday that makes him eventually eligible for parole.

Washington County President Judge Katherine B. Emery sentenced Justin M. Secreti, 40, to a minimum of 35 years for the double homicide of Charles, 85, and Rose Richert, 81, who were found beaten and stabbed in their home Aug. 22, 1993. About $10,000 was stolen from the home. Secreti was 16 at the time.

Emery’s decision came at the end of an emotional hearing that included testimony both from a relative of the Richerts and supporters of Secreti’s bid for a sentence that would make him immediately eligible for parole.

“We were a family that was totally destroyed by your actions,” said Mary Ann Gauthier, the Richerts’ great-niece. She went on to tell Secreti the devastation his actions caused “didn’t stop the day that you were put in prison.”

Andrew Salemme, Secreti’s attorney, argued his client is no longer a threat to society and had been rehabilitated.

“We’re disappointed, obviously. We asked for a time-served sentence,” Salemme said following the proceeding. “Justin and I have to talk about whether he wants to appeal or not. But regardless, we believe that Justin has made a turnaround in his life and is not the same person that was involved in these crimes.”

Secreti pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and other charges, including aggravated assault and robbery in late 1995 and received an automatic term of life without parole in 1996. The state Superior Court vacated that sentence last year, citing two rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court – a 2012 decision that deemed mandatory life sentences for juveniles unconstitutional and another in 2016 that held the earlier decision applies retroactively for juvenile lifers’ cases that were adjudicated before 2012.

Secreti’s older co-defendant Curtis Johnson is serving a mandatory life sentence.

Among the factors to weigh in her decision, Emery noted Secreti’s “traumatic childhood” and his behavior as a model inmate on the one hand. On the other, she called him an “active participant” in the double homicide of an elderly couple which had had a “strong and lasting impact on the family of Mr. and Mrs. Richert.”

First Assistant District Attorney Dennis Paluso, who’d argued for the minimum 35-year sentence, called the ruling “spot on. In our opinion, she followed the current law, both case law and statutory law,” to reach the appropriate decision.

During the hearing, Salemme called Secreti’s mother, friends of his client, a psychologist and guards who knew him at SCI-Greene, where he’s now housed.

From the stand, Secreti apologized to the Richerts’ family. He asked for a chance to prove he could succeed outside of prison. He choked on tears as he read from a letter his attorney submitted to Emery.

“I’ve wnever lost sight of why I was there: lives were needlessly and unfairly taken, and even more lives were damaged, and I feel that all I can do to honor Rose and Charles is to channel all the pain that I’ve caused, and all the pain that I feel for what I’ve caused, and use it to create a stronger and better character in myself,” the letter read, in part.

Secreti’s mother, Ronna, 67, wept in the courtroom following the decision. Outside the courthouse, she said she was happy about the decision that now gives her son eligibility for release in 12 years.

“He now has what we call ‘numbers,'” she said. “When you have life, you have no numbers.”