The Florida man accused of tricking his (now ex) girlfriend into taking an abortion inducing drug to cause her to miscarry their unborn child has been sentenced to nearly 14 years behind bars.
U.S. District Judge Richard A. Lazzara sentenced 29-year-old John Andrew Welden Monday, saying that while he did not think Weldon was an evil person, his action was evil.
“[A]nd for that he is going to have to pay the consequences,” Lazzara said, according to the Tampa Bay Times, sentencing Welden to 13 years and eight months in prison.
Welden accepted a plea deal last year to avoid a possible life sentence if convicted of murder under the federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act, instead pleading to product tampering and mail fraud.
Welden found himself facing a possible life sentence after his girlfriend Remee Jo Lee refused to abort their baby and he tricked her into taking a Cytotec pill, resulting in her miscarriage.
She was nearly seven weeks pregnant.
“He took away the most precious thing I ever had.” Lee said during the sentencing, according to Bay News 9. “This isn’t just a case to me. This is the death of my child.”