A raucous Queens sentencing, interrupted when the howling convicted killer was carried from the courtroom by a half-dozen court officers, ended with a 25-year-to-life sentence for the 2011 murder of a beloved bodega worker.
Unapologetic killer Dewayne Henry, 45, launched a loud and angry rant as victim Jorge Marte’s heartbroken daughter was called to speak before the maximum sentence was imposed at the wild Queens Supreme Court hearing.
“I’d like to address the court!” shouted the handcuffed Henry, convicted of killing Marte with a bullet to the chest during a botched July 8, 2011 robbery. “I’m glad the news are here. Y’all can sentence me and send me on my way because I am innocent. I did not do this!”
Once the defendant was carried out, his legs in the air, the victim’s weeping daughter recounted the pain that followed Marte’s murder.
“We did not have a chance to say ‘I love you,’ to say goodbye to our father,” she said. “My father was shot in the chest, where his gentle and kind heart laid.”
When Henry was returned to the courtroom for sentencing, Judge Michael Aloise ordered the defendant to keep his mouth shut.
“I relish the opportunity to incarcerate you,” said Aloise, who imposed the lengthy jail term before ordering court officers to “put this guy in.”
As the officers led Henry from the hearing he shouted at the judge: “I will be back on the streets!”
The victim’s son Joel Marte was a bit rattled but not surprised by the killer’s courtroom rant.
“The family is doing well, thank goodness” he said. “A little shocked going into the courtroom and what transpired. Myself and my family, we kind of did expect a little bit of that given the perpetrator’s behavior in the past.
“But overall, bittersweet feeling,” he added. “Almost 12 years coming, we finally see justice.”
Henry entered the Melani Grocery Store wearing a white cloth mask and toting a handgun around 10 p.m. on the night of the killing. The robber threw a brown pillowcase on the counter and demanded Marte surrender all the store’s cash, officials said.
Marte, 65, grabbed a knife and ran to the front of the store, with Henry gunning him down while fleeing the scene, cops said. DNA recovered from the pillowcase left at the grocery implicated the defendant, prosecutors said.
“Today’s sentencing provides long overdue closure for the family of Jorge Marte,” said Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz. “I hope they find solace in knowing the man who killed their loved one is going to prison for a very long time.”
Henry was arrested, tried and convicted for another grocery store holdup in June 2012, with the suspect released in 2017 over potential juror misconduct.
The case was dismissed when witnesses in the Obama Deli robbery left the United States, officials said, and the suspect wasn’t arrested for the killing of Marte until August 2018.
He was a less than model inmate, with sources telling the Daily News the killer was caught last August on a recorded prison phone call threatening to “slap the s—” out of his lawyer — with authorities quickly appointing a replacement.
His new attorney apologized for the outbursts before Aloise offered a terse response.
“I’d ask your client to speak,” he said, “But Mr. Henry, you’ve spoken enough.”
Joel Marte said his parents, married for more than 20 years, came to Queens from the Dominican Republic. His dad survived prior holdup attempts, including one where he disarmed a shotgun-toting bandit.
“My father, he was a righteous, honest, loving man,” said the son. “Everyone in the community loved him.”