The first photo depicted a dingy mattress covered by a sheet pockmarked with excrement.
Another showed garbage and old clothes strewn across a carpet stained by urine.
Yet another showed a “commode toilet” covered in waste.
Judge Frank Iannotti grimaced as he looked through more than a dozen such photos depicting the conditions in which Arthur Gauvin forced his younger sister to live, locked inside what police called “dungeon”-like conditions in a home on Seymour’s Eleanor Road.
Gauvin was at Superior Court in Milford Thursday to be sentenced in the case after taking a plea deal in April.
Gauvin’s sister is now receiving proper care at an undisclosed location under the direction of a court-appointed conservator.
Though a prosecutor and Gauvin’s lawyer differed sharply on what caused Gauvin’s conduct, the judge said motive didn’t really matter given the squalor displayed in the photos.
“The bottom line is a person who’s supposed to be one of the most loved people in your life, a sibling, was left for an extended period of time in a locked room to lie in bed in their own excrement,” the judge said. “The pictures of the room tell the only story that anyone needs to know.”
The judge then sentenced Gauvin to serve six and a half years in prison.
He did so after listening to arguments that painted Gauvin alternately as a money-hungry thief who stole his sister’s disability checks to a regular guy who just got in over his head in trying to care for an ailing relative.
Gauvin, 60, had pleaded guilty to first-degree abuse of a disabled person and cruelty to persons in April in connection with the case, for which he was first charged last April after Seymour police received an anonymous complaint asking them to check on Gauvin’s sister, who suffers from dementia.
According to police reports in the case, neighbors had suspected something untoward was going on in the Gauvin house at 10 Eleanor Road for years.
Gavin’s daughter and granddaughter lived in the house, too. Police alleged he intimidated them into staying quiet. In fact, Gauvin was charged with witness tampering after the daughter told cops he threatened to kick her out of the house.
Gauvin had spotted her at the Seymour Police Department after his initial arrest, and cops said he made the threat with the hope of keeping her silent. The witness tampering charge was dropped through plea negotiations.
Cops were sent there in 2012, but found nothing out of the ordinary.
When they returned last April, they noticed a foul odor permeating the home — and traced it to the locked room in which Gauvin was keeping his sister, who is two years younger than him.
Gauvin’s sister was malnourished, police said, and covered in urine and feces.
Gauvin faced between five and 10 years in prison Thursday under the terms of a plea deal.
’Horrendous’ Would Be Generous
Assistant State’s Attorney Cornelius Kellly handed the judge 15 photos depicting the conditions in which police found Gauvin’s sister last April.
In addition to a padlock on the door — supplemented by a child-proof door knob — the photos showed Gauvin’s sister’s badly overgrown toe- and fingernails, a clear sign of neglect.
“We can only guess or estimate how long she was held captive in that house,” Kelly said, estimating the duration at “at least a two-year period of time.”
He noted that a court-appointed conservator had trouble locating medical records that Gauvin should have been keeping while caring for his sister.
“I still cannot fathom why you would shut a loved one into a room, lock it, have the windows boarded up, have the windows painted black, and have that board covering the window be nailed shut,” Kelly said.
Calling such conditions horrendous would be generous, Kelly said.
Kelly suspected Gauvin was afraid of losing the house, which his sister once owned but signed over to him in late 2007, in the event his sister was put into a nursing facility.
That could have triggered a five-year “look back period” under Medicaid rules that penalize people who transfer assets before entering long-term care.
The prosecutor also suspected Gauvin was getting monthly checks on his sister’s behalf and cashing them for his own use instead of using the money for her care.
“Her basic needs were not met,” Kelly said, noting that the woman was hospitalized for five months after being taken out of the home.
The prosecutor asked the judge to hand down a 10-year sentence.
’I Tried My Best’
Gauvin’s lawyer, Daniel Ford, said his client’s bad decisions weren’t motivated by money.
Gauvin knows what he did was wrong, Ford said, but he’s “not an evil man.”
“Rather, Mr. Gauvin was just not sophisticated enough to seek help in assisting with the care of his sister,” Ford said.
“There was no financial motivation here at all, your honor,” Ford said. “No doubt what he did was wrong, but it was all he could do under the circumstances.”
The prosecutor took issue with Ford’s argument.
“He was sophisticated enough to go to an attorney and get the house transferred,” Kelly said.
Gauvin initially declined to speak Thursday, but spoke up after Kelly noted he didn’t offer an apology.
“I’m sorry as far as what happened,” Gauvin said. “I tried my best to take care of her. I just ran into walls.”
You Failed
The judge said he had a hard time squaring Gauvin’s lack of a criminal record with the evidence in the case.
Gauvin’s sister, hampered by serious physical and mental health issues, “had little or no ability to take care of herself.”
So Gauvin became her conservator.
“You failed miserably, Mr. Gauvin, at providing that care,” the judge said.
“It’s inconceivable to me that you couldn’t pick up a telephone and say ‘This is what’s going on here. I am not capable of providing the necessary care for my sister, please help,’” the judge said.
Judge Iannotti said Gauvin knew what he was doing was wrong.
But the judge said he didn’t think Gauvin deserved 10 years behind bars, given his age and lack of a criminal record.
In addition to his prison time, the judge ordered Gauvin to serve five years of probation during which he will be barred from contacting his sister.
Kelly said after the sentencing that he understood the judge’s reasoning, but thought the facts of the case merited a lengthier prison term.
