A distressed man was sentenced to many years in prison after he secretly fed his pregnant girlfriend a drug that induced a miscarriage seven weeks into her term — all because he was not ready to become a father.
A federal judge Monday afternoon sentenced John Andrew Welden to 13 years and eight months in prison for murdering the fetus that ex-girlfriend Remee Jo Lee was carrying.
“I don’t think Mr. Welden is an evil person, but he committed an evil act and for that he’s going to have to pay the consequences,” said U.S. District Judge Richard A. Lazzara, according to the Tampa Tribune.
Welden, 29, is expected to speak before the court prior to commencement of his sentencing, perhaps providing clues into his mindset that led him to kill his girlfriend’s unborn child.
Investigators surreptitiously recorded conversations with Welding and victim Remee Jo Lee last spring that demonstrated a man clearly overwhelmed by the prospect of having a child with a woman he did not love and didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with. A court psychiatrist attributed Welden’s heinous actions to bipolar disorder affected his judgment, leaving him both depressed and irrational.
The ex-girlfriend Lee, 27, was scheduled to testify at an earlier evidentiary hearing but was withdrawn from the witness list without explanation.
Investigators and prosecutors were able to prove that a single dose of the drug misoprostol, which has the brand name Cytotec, which was determined to cause Lee to lose a nearly seven-week pregnancy.
Originally, prosecutors initially charged Welden with first-degree murder under the federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which could have given him a life sentence. Welden, instead, pleading guilty to consumer product tampering and conspiracy to commit mail fraud and will be in prison for nearly 14 years. Welden will serve out his term in a low-security prison camp.
