RICHMOND, Va. — An au pair who schemed with her employer-turned-lover to kill his wife and another man received a 10-year sentence on Friday.
Prosecutors had recommended immediate release for Juliana Peres Magalhães in exchange for her guilty plea to a downgraded manslaughter charge in the February 2023 killing of Joseph Ryan. She testified that she fatally shot Ryan as Brendan Banfield was fatally stabbing his wife, Christine, in the couple’s bedroom.
Instead, the judge delivered the maximum possible sentence to the woman from Brazil.
“I know my remorse cannot bring you peace,” Magalhães said to the victims’ families. “I lost myself in a relationship, and left my morals and values behind.”
Fairfax Chief Circuit Court Judge Penney S. Azcarate showed little mercy.
“Let’s get it straight: You do not deserve anything other than incarceration and a life of reflection on what you have done to the victim and his family. May it weigh heavily on your soul,” the judge said.
Magalhães had remained silent for months before agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors in their case against Brendan Banfield, who was convicted by a jury this month of aggravated murder in the deaths of his wife and Ryan. Prosecutors said they continued their affair for months after the killings.
At his trial, Magalhães testified that she and Banfield, an IRS agent, had created an account in the name of his wife, a pediatric intensive care nurse, on a social media platform for people interested in sexual fetishes. Ryan connected with the account and agreed to meet for a sexual encounter involving a knife.
Magalhães said she and Brendan Banfield took the couple’s 4-year-old child to the basement, and then entered the bedroom, where she said Brendan Banfield shot Ryan and was stabbing his wife in the neck. When she saw Ryan moving, Magalhães said, she fired the second shot that killed him.
She wasn’t arrested until eight months later, and didn’t talk with investigators for more than a year, until she changed her mind as her own trial date approached.
Banfield’s attorney scrutinized the former au pair’s motives during his trial, arguing that she was only saying what prosecutors wanted to hear.
As part of her plea deal, her attorney and prosecutors agreed to end her time behind bars at her sentencing hearing. Chief Judge Penney Azcarate could still reject that agreement. In Virginia, manslaughter is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
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