PITTSBURGH — A former medical researcher was sentenced Wednesday to a mandatory life prison sentence without possibility of parole in the cyanide poisoning death of his neurologist wife.
Robert Ferrante, 66, was convicted in November of first-degree murder when a jury agreed with prosecutors that he laced Dr. Autumn Klein’s energy drink with cyanide in April 2013. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty, leaving Allegheny County Judge Jeffrey Manning no choice under Pennsylvania law but to impose the life sentence in a subdued 30-minute hearing.
The victim’s mother, Lois Klein, of Towson, Md., had planned to address the court but instead had Assistant District Attorney Lisa Pellegrini read a short statement on her behalf.
‘‘She was our only child and the light of our lives has now been extinguished,’’ the statement read.
Ferrante steadfastly denied poisoning Klein, 41, by putting cyanide he acknowledged ordering for his University of Pittsburgh Medical Center laboratory into a creatine energy drink at their home late one night. She immediately collapsed and died three days later, authorities said.
Prosecutors showed the jury text messages in which Ferrante told Klein the drink might help her ovulate and conceive a second child, which witnesses said Klein was obsessed with having. Prosecutors said Ferrante was outwardly supportive of having another child but actually disliked the idea and feared Klein might divorce him.
Defense attorney William Difenderfer plans to appeal, saying there was no direct proof that Ferrante gave his wife cyanide and saying medical experts disagreed as to whether she was poisoned or died from a sudden heart dysrhythmia.