Convicted Worcester bridge attacker Joshua Hubert sentenced to prison

Joshua Hubert, the man convicted of kidnapping and strangling his best friend’s 7-year-old daughter before throwing her off a bridge in 2017, was sentenced to 28 to 30 years in prison on Friday.

Judge Karin Bell handed down the sentence in Worcester Superior Court Friday, about a month after 43-year-old Hubert was convicted of two counts of attempted murder and one count each of strangulation or suffocation and kidnapping a child. Jurors acquitted Hubert of two rape charges. Bell found three aggravating factors, as set forward in the sentencing guidelines, applied to the case.

“The facts and circumstances underlying this case show particular cruelty,” she said.

Bell handed down sentences of 14 to 15 years on each attempted murder charge, running consecutively. She also sentenced Huber to four to five years for the strangulation, followed by four years of probation.

After the sentence was handed down, Hubert was escorted out of the courtoom in handcuffs by court officers.

Before either side argued the sentence, Bell heard victim impact statements from the girl, now 15, and her family.

The girl did not take the stand herself, though she did testify against Hubert at trial. Assistant Worcester District Attorney Emily Meyers read the statement on her behalf on Friday.

In it, she described the post-traumatic stress and depression she endured in the wake of the attack. At 10, she started cutting herself and believed for years she deserved to die the night Hubert attacked her.

The girl said she has reached a point where she is glad she survived.

“I hated myself. I thought I deserved everything that happened to me,” Meyers read. “I hope that someday the little girl I was sitting in the hospital bed finally gets her justice.”

The girl’s mother and father also delivered statements, both struggling through tears as they read. Several people in the packed courtroom cried as they spoke.

“Our family has experienced every possible negative emotion there is‚” her father said.

Hubert, who wore a suit with his hands cuffed together during the hearing, did not react as the statements were read out in court. He was free on bail for years prior to his conviction.

Prosecutors recommended a sentence of 36 to 40 years in prison for Hubert — 18 to 20-year sentences for each count of attempted murder, running consecutively, in a sentencing memo filed this week.

Assistant Worcester District Attorney David McShera also recommended a sentence of 14 to 15 years on the kidnapping charge, which would run concurrent to the attempted murder sentence. He sought 10 years of probation for Hubert for the strangulation and recommended he be required to register as a sex offender upon release.

The sentence proposed in the memo is a significant upward departure from what the sentencing guidelines call for, McShera acknowledged.

The guidelines call for a sentence of 5 to 7 1/2 years for convictions of attempted murder or kidnapping a child, and up to two years for strangulation.

“There is no mitigation, justification, or excuse for the defendant’s actions,” the memo reads.

Kevin Larson, Hubert’s defense lawyer, asked Bell to exercise “empathy” — for the girl and her family, but also for Hubert.

“The reason why I’m asking you to exercise empathy is what gets lost is … what it’s like to be in jail or prison for even a day, to have your freedom taken away,” Larson said.

He asked Bell to adhere to the sentencing guidelines and not adopt prosecutors’ recommendation that she take into account “aggravating circumstances.” Larson recommended a sentence of five to seven years for each count of attempted murder, running concurrently.

“It constitutes a very serious and substantial sentence for someone who has never been to jail or prison before this case,” Larson said.

Given Hubert’s age, the sentence recommended by prosecutors essentially represented a life sentence, he said.

Hubert’s trial lasted exactly two weeks from the jury selection date. It was rife with twists and turns, with prosecutors admitting there’s no forensic evidence that ties Hubert to any of the crimes — even after testing of his car, the child’s clothing and her body after the attack.

There was, however, sperm cell DNA that belonged to the girl’s father, found on her underwear after she was thrown from the bridge.

Larson has said Hubert intends to pursue an appeal based on some of those factors, including new cellphone evidence emerging mid-trial.

The attack played out on a summer night in late August 2017, after a cookout at the girl’s grandparents’ home, which Hubert attended. Hubert, prosecutors proved, kidnapped the girl from the home, then drove around Worcester with her in the trunk of his car. He strangled her, then threw her off the Interstate 290 bridge over Lake Quinsigamond.

She survived the attack, telling police at the time — and reiterating in the courtroom on Sept. 8 — that it was her “friend Josh” who threw her off the bridge.

She also testified to seeing Hubert’s face as he put her in his car. She described playing dead after he’d strangled her, put rope around her neck and a bag over her head, and stuck her in the trunk.

“I was thinking that he wanted me dead,” she said.

Irene Rotondo of the MassLive staff contributed to this report.