New London Superior Court Judge Barbara Bailey Jongbloed sentenced Mozzelle Brown to 58 years in prison Tuesday for the brutal beating death in 2004 of physicist Eugene Mallove after watching a video prepared by the victim’s family members and listening to their anguished impact statements.



Brown, a 41-year-old career criminal, was found guilty in October of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Prosecutor Paul J. Narducci described the killing as “a heinous crime, a brutal crime committed in a depraved way” after noting that the victim, by all accounts, was a fine and gentle man.



In the video, a gregarious Mallove joked with family members during personal moments and enthusiastically described the concept of cold fusion during an interview. He was a prominent science writer who founded his own magazine, “Infinite Energy.”



“Eugene Mallove can’t be replaced easily,” his son, Ethan Mallove, told the court. “He was a rarity. Far more common are ignorant monsters of the sort that committed this crime.”



Kimberly Woodard, the victim’s daughter, said Mallove was so thrilled to become a grandfather that he videotaped her baby boy even when he was sleeping. She said he never had a chance to know the granddaughter who was born four years ago.



“They don’t know what they lost,” Woodard said of her children. “But I do.”



Evidence at the trial showed that Brown and his cousin, Chad M. Schaffer, went to the Mallove home at 119 Salem Turnpike in Norwich on May 14, 2004, and attacked the 56-year-old physicist as he was preparing his childhood home for rental. Schaffer’s mother and stepfather had recently been evicted from the home. The two men left and returned with Schaffer’s girlfriend, Candace L. Foster, and continued the attack as Mallove, lying in the driveway bleeding from the mouth, begged for help.



Witnesses testified that days after the murder, Brown mimicked punching and kicking Mallove and boasted to a group of friends about beating him “beyond recognition.”



Brown looked uncomfortable as Mallove’s children spoke of the depth of their loss, but turned to them and denied his involvement when the judge asked if he had anything to say.



“I would like to say I’m sorry to the family, but I had nothing to do with it,” he said.



His attorney, Richard Marquette, said Brown, father of a 13-year-old boy, had been abused by his father as a child and lacked family stability for most of his life.



In handing down the sentence, the judge told the Mallove family there is nothing the court could do to undo their pain and suffering but that she hoped it would help them find some sense of closure.



She said the crime was “about as serious an offense as this court has seen” and that the most serious punishment was appropriate. Brown is expected to appeal, but if unsuccessful is likely to remain in prison for the rest of his life.



“This conduct demonstrated an astounding level of indifference to human life that does rise to the level of extreme depravity,” Jongbloed said.



Brown’s cousin, Schaffer, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in the midst of his trial in 2012 and is serving a 16-year sentence. The case of Schaffer’s girlfriend, Foster, who helped police solve the crime and testified at Schaffer’s and Brown’s trials, is expected to be resolved later this winter. After four years in prison, Foster was released in December on a written promise to appear in court on Feb. 11.



The prosecution of the physicist’s killers took more than a decade because police received information early in the investigation that threw them off the trail for more than four years. The weekend of the homicide, New Britain police called to report they had picked up two men with blood on their clothing in a car stolen from Groton. Joseph Reilly and Gary McAvoy weren’t acting right, according to testimony, and a year later were charged with Mallove’s murder. The two men were exonerated in 2008 after a defense attorney and investigator uncovered a clerical error that made it appear the men were tied to the case through physical evidence.



Working with state police, the Norwich police reopened the case, began reinterviewing witnesses and brought charges against Schaffer, Brown and Foster in 2010. Brown was serving a 15-year federal prison sentence for drug and firearms offenses when he was brought back to Connecticut in 2013 to stand trial for Mallove’s murder.



k.florin@theday.com



Twitter: @KFLORIN

