June 5, 2026 / 1:07 PM EDT
/ CBS/AP
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A Virginia man who was having an affair with the family's Brazilian au pair was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole for the murder of his wife and a man who was lured to the couple's home as a fall guy. Brendan Banfield, a former IRS law enforcement officer, claimed he shot Joseph Ryan after he came across Ryan attacking his wife on the morning of Feb. 24, 2023. But prosecutors said Brendan Banfield and au pair Juliana Peres Magalhães set Ryan up in a scheme to get rid of Christine Banfield, a pediatric intensive care nurse. Judge Penney Azcarate called Banfield's actions evil and calculated. "The disregard of the life of your wife, someone you supposedly loved, is almost unfathomable," she said in handing down the sentence, which is mandatory in Virginia for an aggravated murder conviction. The scheme involved "luring a completely innocent man into your deadly trap; continuing on after the murders without a care; and not once — not once — thinking of the impact" on the Banfields' 4-year-old daughter. Brendan Banfield "took everything from her," Azcarate said. In addition to murder, jurors in February convicted Banfield of child endangerment because the couple's daughter was home during the killings. Azcarate sentenced Banfield to an additional five years on that charge and three more years on a firearms charge. Speaking at his sentencing, Banfield continued to proclaim his innocence, saying it would have been impossible for him to have committed the murders. He reiterated there was dissent within the police department over the theory Banfield and Magalhães had impersonated Christine Banfield on a website for sexual fetishes in order to lure Ryan to the home.
