19-Year-Old Gets Life Term for Strangling Praying Boy

PATERSON, N.J. — A 19-year-old convicted of strangling a onetime friend while the victim recited the “Hail Mary” was sentenced Friday to life in prison.

“I can’t see what was inside you. I can only tell you what it is I see, and that is no remorse or even regret,” Judge Ronald Marmo told James Wanger.

Margaret Chircop, whose son was slain, spoke in court before the judge imposed the sentence.

“How dare you play God?” she said. “How dare you extinguish my son’s life, to say my son had no right to live?”

Robert Solimine Jr., 17, of North Haledon, was strangled in February, 1992, while sitting in his car with Wanger.

The sentence includes consecutive terms for two earlier attempts to kill Solimine. Wanger will not be eligible for parole until he is 57.

Another teen-ager in the car and two others in an adjacent car pleaded guilty to murder and received reduced sentences in exchange for their testimony.

The youths testified that they grew to hate Solimine because they considered him a pest and a snitch who told about their drinking.