By Sophia Chang
But the Rosedale teenager's youth will be long over by the time he gets out of jail after the 51 1/3 years-to-life prison term that State Supreme Court Judge Robert Hanophy handed Bryant, last Thursday, the maximum sentence possible.”He deserves every bit of the time, I have no doubt about that,” Hanophy said at the sentencing. “I feel sorry for the parents. They think they have an angel here.”A jury found Bryant guilty of intentional murder, robbery and tampering with evidence on March 16, after a day and a half of deliberations.Bryant, dressed in a baggy green jacket, stared straight ahead during the sentencing while his mother Madeline Bryant cried softly as prosecutors called him a “monster” and demanded the state's maximum prison term for Bryant, who was tried as an adult. Assistant District Attorney Brad Leventhal detailed the gory 2004 murder of Huang Chen, a Woodside resident who worked in his family's Chinese restaurant on Guy R. Brewer Boulevard in Rochdale Village.”I pause to think what the last moments of Chen's life were,” Leventhal said in the Kew Gardens courtroom packed with Chen's family and supporters. Those last moments came when Bryant, 16-year-old Nayquan Miller, and another accomplice placed an order for food on Feb. 13, 2004, and attacked Chen when he delivered the food to Miller's Rochdale Village apartment, according to the district attorney's office. Chen pleaded with the boys to take his money and let him leave, but they allegedly beat him with a bat and repeatedly stabbed him in the upper torso so he would not be able to identify them, the DA said. They took the body down in a laundry cart, tying a white plastic bag around Chen's head to avoid a trail of blood, and used Chen's old Mazda to take the body to Brookville Pond, prosecutors said. “This defendant never once demonstrated or showed the least bit of remorse,” Leventhal said.Miller, facing the same charges of robbery, murder and tampering with evidence, is expected to go to trial sometime after the summer, though the district attorney's office said they do not have enough evidence to prosecute the third suspect.”My son…for no reason at all was killed by a couple of monsters,” said Chen's father, Xing Shou Chen, in a translated statement before the sentencing. “I worked at this restaurant for over 10 years, and in 10 years I have seen a lot of different things happen. To this day I still can't believe this has happened.”Leventhal read another statement written by Chen's sister,Yvonne, in which she recalled her brother's last day and how joyful he was when she found out she had landed a coveted ticket counter job at nearby Kennedy Airport.”'Your lunch from now on, I will deliver it to you everyday,' he told me. I was so touched,” Yvonne Chen wrote. “But I never had a lunch delivered. He was only 18 when he was murdered. What had he done wrong that he had to be murdered this way?””This animal should be kept in jail forever,” Yvonne Chen said in the statement. “Nothing can bring Huang back, but at least we can prevent another tragedy.”After the sentencing, City Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing) stood with the Chens outside the court and called the punishment “a strong message to would-be criminals who see food delivery workers as easy prey.””After this experience, I hope this kind of thing will never happen again,” Xing Shou Chen said. Reach reporter Sophia Chang by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by calling 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.
