A father who was filmed on surveillance camera forcing his six-year-old son to run on a high-speed treadmill, despite the boy falling over repeatedly, denied involvement in his death even as he was sentenced for his murder.
Christopher Gregor, 31, was found guilty of both aggravated manslaughter and child endangerment, following the death of Corey Micciolo in April 2021.
Gregor was sentenced to 25 years behind bars on Friday but denied responsibility until the last. “I want to assure you that on April 2, I did nothing to cause Corey’s passing,” Gregor said, becoming visibly and audibly emotional in court.
“I didn’t hurt my son. I loved him and I still do. I regret not bringing him to the hospital sooner. I didn’t know how sick he was. I didn’t know. I just thought he was tired.”
The youngster died after being taken to a hospital complaining of symptoms including slurred speech, stumbling, nausea and shortness of breath.
At the hospital, the boy told doctors that his father, who wasn’t aware he had a son until the boy was five, forced him to run on a treadmill because he was “too fat.” Shocking video seemingly confirming the youngster’s account was played at trial.
Judge Guy Ryan handed down the lengthy sentence on Friday after the child’s mother pleaded for the harshest possible punishment.
“[Gregor] has no remorse for any of the actions he committed. His own remorse is because he got caught and convicted,” the child’s mom, Breanna Micciolo, told the court.
“Everything he had done to Corey was done out of spite to me. Another reason is he is sick in the head and used Corey as his punching bag. He never had an ounce of love for Corey, he was just an inconvenience to his life.”
Gregor was originally charged only with the child endangerment offense, though the charge was later upgraded to murder when a medical examiner amended their autopsy report to show Corey’s cause of death as homicide.
Dr Thomas Andrew, former chief medical examiner for New Hampshire, who helped revise the examiner’s initial report, testified for the prosecution that the child died as a result of blunt force injuries to the chest and lacerations to the heart and liver.
Micciol said she tried to report suspected abuse more than 100 times in 18 months to New Jersey officials, but no action was taken.
“I don’t know if it was incompetence on [the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency] side or they just didn’t believe me,” she told NewsNation last year.
