The family of eight-year-old Leiby Kletzky has sued the suspect in his murder and the suspect’s father for $100 million each, it was reported on Monday.
Leiby Kletzky went missing on July 11 as he was walking home from day camp in Brooklyn. His dismembered body was found a day later after a frantic search.
35-year-old Levi Aron was arrested and charged with the murder. He later pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and kidnapping.
The New York Daily News reported on Monday that Leiby’s parents have sued Aron for $100 million for kidnapping, killing and dismembering their son.
According to the report the parents are also suing Aron’s father because the murder took place in an attic apartment inside the father’s home.
“Obviously, the acts are horrific and horrendous and the level of damages should reflect what those acts were,” Mark Goldsmith, the Kletzkys’ lawyer, told The New York Daily News. “This is as horrific an event as a family can go through.”
According to the civil suit, which was filed last week in Brooklyn Supreme Court, Leiby “was terrorized, physically and psychologically assaulted and injured, and was murdered and his body dismembered, with parts of his body hidden in a refrigerator.”
A source said the suit was filed on behalf of Leiby’s father, Nachman Kletzky. It argues for damages based on wrongful death and potential loss of income that Leiby would have earned had he reached working age, The Daily Times said.
Aron’s father, Jack Aron, is being taken on in a separate lawsuit and is being blamed for “causing, allowing and permitting tools of terror to be and remain at said premises, knowing of the vicious, assaultive and murderous propensities of his son, Levi Aron.”
The Daily News noted the suit also accuses Jack Aron of failing to monitor his son or discover that he had held the boy hostage in the small apartment for more than a day.
Levi Aron’s lawyers have said they would be preparing an insanity plea and have claimed Aron is “abnormal” and can’t stop hearing sinister voices.
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes has vowed to pursue “swift justice” for Aron, saying that he would stop at nothing to ensure that the suspected murderer would be convicted in Leiby’s death, dismissing suggestions that an insanity defense might carry some weight.
