The boyfriend of Sundance TV reality star Loredana Nesci was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison on Tuesday after being found guilty Friday of second-degree murder.
Robert Reagan, 53, was found guilty of fatally stabbing Nesci, 47, in her Redondo Beach, California, home in 2015. Nesci was a former police officer who became a lawyer, and her home life and legal career was the focus of the reality series Loredana, Esq.
Reagan, a former model for Hugo Boss and other major brands, looked down as Nesci’s family members and friends chastised him during a proceeding in Torrance Superior Court, the Daily Breeze reports.
“I will never know what Loredana ever saw in you,” the victim’s brother Robert Nesci wrote in a letter read in court by Deputy District Attorney Allyson Ostrowski, according to the Daily Breeze. “She wasted years of her life, gifted you with so much money, and foolishly believed in your stories. You told her lie after lie.
The letter continued, “You were never grateful but, just like any other con man, you tried to dig deeper and get more out of her for doing nothing. And when she was finally going to leave you, you gutted her like a farm animal.”
The former couple shared a son who was 5-years-old when Nesci was killed, and the boy was in the home at the time of the murder. After the murder, Reagan called his sister to come pick him up.
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The jury announced the guilty verdict in August against Reagan after three days of deliberations.
“He was pretty stoic as the verdict was read,” Ostrowski previously told PEOPLE. “When the jury left, he cried a little bit.”
“I think there was overwhelming evidence in the case and it was the right verdict,” said Ostrowski. “I am very grateful for the jury. I am glad she can rest in peace.”
Ostrowski said Nesci and Reagan were on the verge of breaking up when she was found dead in her bedroom on July 22, 2015.
Ostrowski suspected that Reagan killed Nesci because “he wanted to avoid an expensive and bitter custody battle.”
Ostrowksi said Reagan went through an expensive and litigious divorce with his first wife and didn’t want to go through with another one.
During the two-week trial, Ostrowski told the jury that Reagan “gutted” the former LAPD officer and bodybuilder with a “Rambo-style” hunting knife. Her abdominal wound was 7 inches long, according to the Daily Breeze.
Prosecutors believed Reagan killed Nesci around 3 a.m. — five hours before he called 911. In the interim, he called his sister in San Diego and asked her to come pick up his son, and he took a shower.
“There was blood evidence in the shower drain in the bathroom,” she says.
Reagan described the killing as a “tragic accident,” telling jurors Nesci was accidentally stabbed after she threatened him with a knife.
“She was brilliant, beautiful, loving, kind, selfless and so positive, even when things weren’t ideal she would stay positive,” friend April Moore previously told PEOPLE of Nesci. “When I talked to her Friday, even though her relationship was not going as planned, she was positive. I told her that was one of the things I admired the most about her.”
It was not immediately clear if Reagan planned to appeal.