TRACY BRETON
Journal Staff Writer

The Providence Journal

Thursday, 6/1/2006

Evangeline "Lea" Henry also admitted stealing tens of thousands of dollars of her aunt's money while acting as her guardian.

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NEWPORT -- Evangeline "Lea" Henry, a Middletown mother of three, was sentenced yesterday to serve three years in prison for attacking her elderly aunt, for whom she was guardian, with Clorox bleach.

The attack on 70-year-old Mary S. Goulios in her subsidized apartment nearly killed her. In imposing sentence, Newport County Superior Court Judge Edwin J. Gale said that while he could not say that Henry had intended to murder her aunt, Goulios "was seriously injured and I find that without neighborly concern coupled with police intervention, this would likely have been a murder prosecution."

According to evidence presented at Henry's trial, Henry went to her aunt's apartment at the AHEPA house, 87 Girard Ave., on Dec. 15, 2004, stuffed a rag soaked with Clorox bleach into her mouth and poured bleach over her. When a neighbor who heard Goulios' cries called the police, they had to knock down the door to gain entry. They found Goulios on her back and Henry kneeling on her aunt's shoulders with her right fist shoved inside Goulios' mouth.

The attack, Gale said yesterday, resulted from a "most unpleasant relationship that developed between" Henry and her aunt while Goulios was under guardianship after lapsing into a diabetic coma in 2002. Upon recovering, Goulios accused her niece of stealing her money and, according to the prosecution, Henry was afraid that her aunt would press charges against her, and attacked her with the bleach.

While Gale said he did not buy the argument made by defense lawyer J. Terence Houlihan that Henry had merely "lost it" when she attacked Goulios, he said he did believe that Henry had perhaps been "blinded by rage, fear and hatred" when she attacked her aunt and that the attack was "in large part a spontaneous assault as a result of a barrage of complaints" from her aunt.

The full sentence Gale imposed on Henry was 10 years, with 3 years to serve. Upon release, the judge ordered Henry to perform 200 hours of community service.

On April 3, Henry, 45, of 64 Beagle Drive, pleaded no contest to a charge of felony assault and battery on a person over 60, causing serious bodily injury. The plea came in the midst of her jury trial. In return for Henry's no-contest plea, prosecutors dropped a second felony assault charge that she was being tried for and agreed to recommend that she serve no more than six years in prison.

Henry also pleaded no contest yesterday to a felony embezzlement charge -- for stealing tens of thousands of dollars of her aunt's money while acting as Goulios' guardian. The plea agreement provided that if she admitted guilt to the theft, Henry would get no additional prison time.

Gale imposed a 10-year suspended prison sentence on the embezzlement charge, to run concurrently with the sentence for the assault.

Henry has repaid her aunt nearly $20,000 as a result of protracted Probate Court proceedings but prosecutors are insisting that she make much more restitution. Gale ordered additional restitution yesterday but said the amount will be determined later by a Superior Court magistrate.

Henry served as her aunt's guardian for two years but was removed from that position after the bleach attack. For the first time yesterday, as her parents, husband and three children looked on, Henry apologized to her aunt, who sat on the opposite side of the courtroom with Richard P. D'Addario, the lawyer who investigated and uncovered the theft of Goulios' funds.

"I am very sincerely sorry for all the bad judgment and everything that I have done to hurt my aunt, and I'd really like to apologize to her," she said in a barely audible voice.

Prosecutor Feidlim E. Gill asked Gale to impose the maximum allowed under the plea agreement -- 15 years with 6 years to serve. The sentencing benchmarks call for 4 to 5 years, he pointed out, but the penalty should be enhanced because "there was substantial risk of death" in this case, Gill argued.

He said Henry had gone on shopping sprees with her aunt's money after she sold Goulios' house in Newport and that she'd gone to Goulios' apartment the night of the bleach attack "in disguise" so she wouldn't be recognized on the surveillance camera and apprehended.

Gill said that Henry's 12-page letter to the court contains only four lines "that have anything to do with an apology" and "it's not a sincere apology."

Goulios suffered serious burns over most of her body in the bleach attack and was unconscious, in critical condition, for four days. She became the star prosecution witness at her niece's trial. Yesterday, she asked Gale to send her niece to prison for "the maximum" six years.

"This was premeditated attempted murder to cover up embezzlement and greed of monumental proportions," the victim told Gale. "When I went into a diabetic coma, I had a two-apartment house, a car, clothes, furniture, jewelry and over $123,000 in bonds in the bank -- everything I needed. In a year, almost everything was gone. Fifty years of work went down the drain.

"Mrs. Henry from day one conspired behind my back to make me look incompetent in order to control my finances and my life," Goulios said.

"Mr. and Mrs. Henry are not poor relatives of mine. They own a three-apartment house in Newport, their own home in Middletown. They are financially well-off and also stand to inherit another house in Newport and a condominium in Florida."

Goulios said she has continuing medical problems as a result of the bleach attack. "I would be dead now if the police had not intervened," she said.

Earlier in the hearing, Goulios' sister, Helen Bitzilios, who is Lea Henry's mother, asked the court for leniency, saying her daughter was a good person, loving daughter, parent and wife. Henry herself told the court that her youngest child, Kevin, who is 9, needs constant medical attention because he takes anti-rejection drugs because of a kidney transplant. Recently, she said, she helped raise $17,000 in a fundraiser for a child who has leukemia. The judge said he had received many letters attesting to Henry's good work. She is someone who has helped people often "for no reward sought or expected," he said. But he said he felt a prison sentence was necessary.

The General Assembly, Gale said, "has mandated special protections for the elderly" and elders "require special consideration, often extreme patience and perhaps even undeserved compassion."

Henry, who told the court that she is on several medications for depression, anxiety and an inability to sleep, was led from the courtroom in handcuffs, showing little emotion. The judge turned down her request to remain free for a time so she could get her affairs in order.

tbreton@projo.com / (401) 277-7362