Man Convicted in Girlfriend's Strangulation Death Sentenced to Life Without Parole

The University of Florida law school graduate convicted of beating and strangling his girlfriend to death in her Queens apartment has been sentenced to life without parole, a judge said Tuesday.

Jason Bohn, 35, was found guilty in March of first-degree murder in the June 2012 slay of Danielle Thomas, a financial analyst for Weight Watchers who was killed in the Astoria home the couple rented.

Her body was lying face up in the bathtub surrounded with bags of ice, and there was bruising on her face, shoulders and neck, and lacerations on her face, mouth and chest. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the neck and torso. She was believed to have been killed the previous weekend.

Weeks prior to her death, Thomas had told police Bohn had beaten her a month earlier, leaving her with two black eyes and on crutches. He called her cellphone while she was at the police station and Thomas put it on speaker; the detectives heard Bohn threaten to bash in her skull and hunt her down like a dog.

Bohn was arrested that day and Thomas was granted an order of protection. Charges of assault and aggravated harassment were pending against him when she died.

At Bohn's sentencing Tuesday, Thomas' grandmother called him "a bully and a coward."

"I'm trying not to hate you, Jason. The Bible says I must forgive and I will," she said. 

Jamie Thomas-Bright, Thomas' mother, said life would never be good for her again and that she dreaded getting older because she would likely do so alone.  

Bohn tearfully apologized before he was sentenced. He turned, bawling, to Thomas' mother and grandmother and whimpered, "I don't know what to say. I don't know how this happened." 

Bohn's attorney, Todd Greenberg, previously said his client had been suffering from emotional disturbances, but wouldn't say whether his client had a history of mental illness.

Two handwritten notes were found by Thomas' body, apparently written by Bohn. One pledged his love for her. The other read, "It was an accident. It was an accident." 

Thomas was 27 when she died. A native of Danville, Ky., she attended both the University of Florida and University of Central Florida, where she was a member of the Eta Sigma Delta Honor Society.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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