JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey man has been sentenced to 106 years in prison in the murder of an elderly neighbor.

NJ.com reports that applause broke out after 53-year-old Jeffrey Harley was sentenced to what amounts to life plus 31 years. Prosecutors said he will have to serve at least 85 percent of the life term — 63 years — before being eligible for parole.

Prosecutors said Harley choked, stabbed and slashed 81-year=-old Lucila Cardenas-Viejo, severing her carotid artery, in her Jersey City apartment in February 2016. Authorities said the victim had paid him to shovel snow in the past.

Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Leo Hernandez described the victim's 30-minute ordeal as brutal violence on a defenseless victim extending "to the extreme reaches of human behavior."

Harley declined to speak before sentencing.

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Information from: NJ.com, http://www.nj.com