Suffolk Superior Court Judge Frank Gaziano sentenced Guardiola to four to seven years at MCI-Cedar Junction in Walpole, calling his actions “wanton and reckless.’’ Prosecutors had asked for five to 10 years.

Guardiola, a 26-year-old South Boston man who until August 2010 had no criminal record, pleaded guilty yesterday to involuntary manslaughter in the death of a 23-year-old Wall Street consultant.

Hector Guardiola hurled the heavy glass into the crowd at The Lansdowne pub in Fenway, an act of fury and impulse that would kill a man and lead to a lifetime of regret.

The outcome of Guardiola’s actions was almost freakish. After a confrontation with another pub patron after midnight on Aug. 14, Guardiola threw the glass in the direction of the man, who was hanging out with friends.


One of them was Michael DiMaria, who had come from New York to Boston to reunite with college friends.

The glass struck one man in the head and shattered into pieces, with two of them hitting a woman. The biggest piece, a jagged shard, flew at DiMaria and struck him in the neck, shredding his jugular vein and killing him.

For the dozen relatives and friends who came to the hearing wearing pictures of DiMaria pinned to their clothes, the plea and subsequent sentence were little comfort.

“He gets out,’’ DiMaria’s older sister, Jennifer Mastronardi, said after the hearing. “I don’t get my brother back in four to seven years.’’

At the time of DiMaria’s death, Guardiola, a Puerto Rican native who came to Boston six years ago, was working as a janitor at a Boston hospital. He had also worked as a dishwasher at Legal Sea Foods.

That night, he went to the pub with a female friend, said Assistant Suffolk District Attorney Ian Polumbaum.


The pair had only one drink and were walking toward the pub’s exit when Guardiola brushed with DiMaria’s friend.

The friend confronted Guardiola, thinking he had shoved him, Polumbaum said.

“They got in each other’s faces,’’ he said. “They had some hostile words. They stared at each other, before they were pulled apart.’’

It should have been over, Polumbaum said.

But instead, Guardiola walked toward the group of friends, where DiMaria, who had no idea his friend had been involved in a confrontation, was hanging out.

Danielle O’Brien, the young woman who was hit in the forehead and shoulder by the glass, asked that Guardiola receive the maximum sentence.

“The defendant has no idea what it felt like to sit in a hospital all night and then be told that our best friend was killed,’’ O’Brien said as she sat in the witness stand, where she read her impact statement. “Since then, none of our lives have been the same.’’

Mastronardi, who also took the stand, said her family visits her brother’s grave every week and always finds it covered in flowers, pictures, and Jets and Mets memorabilia left by friends.

In a shaky voice, she called Guardiola her brother’s “murderer,’’ who had condemned her and her family to “a life of hell.’’

“Please know that you will never be forgiven,’’ she told Guardiola, who kept his head down.

“I wish you the same pain you have caused us many times over. May you think of Michael every day, the innocent man you killed because you threw a glass.


“You wanted to hurt someone and you did. You hurt my entire family and all of his friends. . . . May you hear Michael’s name and hear our sobs every day for the rest of your life.’’

Guardiola said little during the proceeding, giving one-word answers to Gaziano’s questions about his background and his understanding of making a plea of guilty.

Gaziano said he hoped that Guardiola will leave prison understanding that “his actions have consequences.’’

“He feels terrible,’’ Guardiola’s lawyer, Albert Hutton Jr., said following the sentencing, which he called fair. “It’s the frailty of human nature. You do something, and you regret it for a million years.’’

DiMaria’s family said they would be returning to New York immediately.

His father, Joseph, said he has to figure out what to do about his son’s bedroom and his car, a Toyota Highlander that still sits in the family’s garage. The pain of their loss is constant, Joseph DiMaria said.

“It’s something we’re learning to live with,’’ he said. “But it never goes away.’’

Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.