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More than nine years separated the strangulation of a woman in her Upper West Side apartment and the conviction of her estranged husband, Roderick Covlin, for her murder.

By the end of the trial in March, nearly everyone in Mr. Covlin’s life viewed him as a calculated sociopath, willing not only to kill his wife, Shele Danishefsky Covlin, for her fortune, but to manipulate the couple’s two children to gain access to their inheritance.

Still, when Mr. Covlin was sentenced in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Wednesday, there was a final twist to the sad saga: The couple’s children pleaded with the judge for leniency for their father.

Myles Covlin, who is 12, approached Justice Ruth Pickholz to speak, standing a short distance from his father at the defense table.