Levi Aron was sentenced today in the killing of eight-year-old Leiby Kletzky.

Levi Aron, the former hardware store clerk who pleaded guilty earlier this month to kidnapping and killing eight-year-old Leiby Kletzky last July, was sentenced today in Brooklyn court to a sentence of 40 years to life in prison.

The sentence was in keeping with a plea deal Aron's lawyers had worked out with prosecutors earlier this month. Under the terms of the deal, Aron, 36, avoids more severe charges and leaves open the possibility, however unlikely, that he could some day be paroled.

Asked today if he wanted to say anything before sentencing, Aron, who was monosyllabic and all but inaudible at his plea hearing earlier this month, simply shook his head.

Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who has acted as a spokesman and representative for the Kletzky family since the first days of his disappearance, said the family agreed to the terms of the plea in order to avoid a painful trial.

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Leiby Kletzky, the eight-year-old boy whose murder Levi Aron pleaded guilty to in court today.

Levi Aron, the Borough Park man in custody since last summer after confessing to police that he abducted and dismembered eight-year-old Leiby Kletzky, pleaded guilty today to second-degree murder and kidnapping in a plea deal that will carry a sentence of 40 years to life.

Aron's lawyers said one of the reasons for the plea was that while Aron's mental health "isn't the same as yours or mine," psychiatric evaluations suggested that his mental health issues didn't interfere with his ability to understand the consequences of his actions.

Even so, Aron had to be cajoled and prodded through his guilty plea with leading questions from State Supreme Court Justice Neil Firetog.

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The full confession of Levi Aron, the Brooklyn man who has been charged with murdering and dismembering 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky, is now available. In a distinctive cramped hand, Aron writes dispassionately of how he went about smothering Leiby and hacking his body into two pieces.

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Levi Aron, the Brooklyn man accused of killing and dismembering 8-year-old Borough Park boy Leiby Kletzky last month, has been deemed fit to stand trial after pleading not guilty. He was arraigned today on first-degree murder and kidnapping charges. Reports also came out today about Aron's behavior immediately following his arrest; he apparently said "I'm famous" and begged for McDonald's, but was given Chinese food instead.

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• Levi Aron, the alleged killer of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky, who was drugged, smothered, and then dismembered, will be in court today to be arraigned on murder charges. Autopsy results for Kletzky found he'd ingested "cyclobenzaprine, a muscle relaxant; quetiapine, an antipsychotic drug; hydrocodone, a pain medication; and acetaminophen, the drug found in Tylenol." [CNN]

• AT&T wireless customers in New York City are facing an outage due to "a software upgrade"; the problem started at 1:30 a.m. and won't let users make or receive calls. There's currently no ETA for fixing the problem. [NBC NY]

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Rabbi Nachman and Esther Kletzky, the parents of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky, the Borough Park boy allegedly abducted and killed by Levi Aron, have issued a statement to the public following their seven days of mourning. They thank friends, neighbors, volunteers, government agencies, and all New Yorkers, as well as those beyond, who helped and prayed for Leiby. Along with asking people to perpetuate the collective love and responsibility expressed during the search for the boy, they've set up a fund, LeibyKletzkyMemorialFund -- which features an array of photos from Leiby's childhood and heartbreaking sentiments like "Leiby can never laugh again" -- "to channel the lovingkindness shown to us and our dear Leiby toward many, many others in need." (Currently there is $134,266 donated. The fund will be managed by Leiby's parents, along with their rabbi.) The family's full statement, after the jump.

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Police are continuing to search the home of Levi Aron, the Brooklyn man who admitted to killing 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky, and yesterday removed bags marked "kids pants" and "blue child's spoon, pink cup," thus leaving room for speculation that he's murdered before. The attic apartment in Kensington where Aron lived above his father and uncle contained items not thought to have belonged to Kletzky. "There were two boxes in a closet, and they appear to have been there for a while," a source told the Post. Aron was also accused of stalking another neighborhood boy days before Kletzky disappeared. [NYP]

Christopher Macsurak

Borough Park

The parents of Leiby Kletzky, the 8-year-old Borough Park boy who was killed and dismembered last week, stopped sitting shiva this morning. The grand jury investigating Kletzky's alleged killer, Levi Aron, is expected to announce his indictment today, according to the Brooklyn Attorney's office. And the Medical Examiner's office has revealed that the boy was drugged as well as asphyxiated.

But as the new details and pending trial keep the focus on the gruesome killing itself, the death of Leiby Kletzky is also starting conversations about what can be done in the future to prevent similar horrors from taking place.

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Leiby Kletzky, the 8-year-old Brooklyn boy kidnapped and murdered last week, was given drugs before he was suffocated. The medical examiner's office announced today that Kletzky died from asphyxiation, as previously believed, but also from an overdose of pills, including Vicodin and Tylenol, something suspect Levi Aron left out of his confession last week, in which he claimed to have smothered Leiby with a towel. The official cause of death was "intoxication by the combined effects of cyclobenzaprine (muscle relaxant) , quetiapine (antipsychotic), hydrocodone (pain medication), and acetaminophen (Tylenol), followed by smothering." [NYT]

Levi Aron, the 35-year-old man who confessed to to the murder of 8-year-old Brooklyn boy Leiby Kletzky, has been going through a series of psych exams at Bellevue. Defense attorneys who spent two hours with him say they believe he's mentally unstable, that he's "been hearing voices for some time," and that he tries to "quell some of the voices" by listening to music. "His demeanor appears to be abnormal," said defense attorney Pierre Bazile.

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