Au Pair Juliana Peres Magalhães Sentenced to 10 Years in Banfield Double Murder Case

Juliana Peres Magalhães, 25, had cooperated with prosecutors, who sought a lenient sentence. But the judge said the woman, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter, merited the state maximum.

An au pair from Brazil who pleaded guilty to manslaughter for her role in a lurid double murder in Virginia was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison.

It is the maximum for manslaughter in the state and was far longer than what had been sought by prosecutors, who relied on testimony by the woman, Juliana Peres Magalhães, to convict her lover, Brendan Banfield, of murder. Prosecutors recommended that she get sentenced to the time she had already served behind bars since her arrest, which would have allowed her to go free almost immediately.

Ms. Magalhães, 25, was having an affair with Mr. Banfield while working for the family as an au pair, and at his trial, she testified that she helped Mr. Banfield murder his wife, Christine Banfield, and another man, Joseph Ryan, in an elaborate scheme.

Prosecutors said Mr. Ryan had been lured to the Banfields’ home in Herndon, Va. on Feb. 24, 2023, through a sexual fetish website in which Mr. Banfield and Ms. Magalhães posed as Ms. Banfield. They said that Mr. Banfield shot Mr. Ryan and then used the knife Mr. Ryan was told to bring to stab Ms. Banfield, making it look like Mr. Ryan had killed Ms. Banfield.

Judge Penney Azcarate of the Circuit Court in Fairfax County elected to go well beyond the sentencing recommendations made by both prosecutors and the defense.

Judge Azcarate acknowledged that Ms. Magalhães did not conceive the plan and may have been groomed by Mr. Banfield, who is 15 years older and was her employer.

But the judge cited a list of reasons why she was giving Ms. Magalhães the maximum. Judge Azcarate said that until Friday’s sentencing hearing, Ms. Magalhães had offered no remorse; that when Ms. Banfield had yelled to her to call 9-1-1, she did not; and when Mr. Ryan, who had been shot in the head by Mr. Banfield, began to move afterward, she shot him in the chest to make sure he was dead.

“You do not deserve anything other than life in prison,” the judge told Ms. Magalhães. who had been charged with second-degree murder in October 2023, before reaching an agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty to manslaughter.

Mr. Ryan’s mother and his aunt addressed the court — and also Ms. Magalhães.

“I can never unhear Joe’s cries after he was shot, the cries of a dying man,” his mother, Deirdre Fisher, said via a video call.

Her son, she added, “didn’t deserve to be used and thrown away and treated as utterly disposable. Thank you for listening and weighing the trail of pain and loss that Juliana left in the wake of her calculated murder.”

Members of Ms. Banfield’s family attended the hearing, but they were not permitted to speak because the manslaughter charge applied only to Mr. Ryan’s killing.

Mr. Banfield, a former agent for the criminal division of the Internal Revenue Service, was found guilty on Feb. 2. on two counts of aggravated murder, one count of using a firearm in commission of a felony and one count of child endangerment. He could face life in prison. Sentencing is tentatively scheduled for May 8.

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