Nurse Who Played ‘Hero’ Sentenced in Deaths of 4 Patients

A nurse convicted of killing four patients by injecting them with a paralyzing drug so that he could later revive them and appear to be a hero was sentenced Wednesday to 50 years to life in prison.

“You had no right to usurp God’s function,” Judge Alfred Tisch told Richard Angelo in imposing the maximum sentence allowed by state law.

Tisch said that Angelo, who showed no emotion as he heard the sentence, had violated “in the cruelest, most inhumane manner” the child-like trust that a hospitalized person places in a nurse.

Angelo, 27, of Lindenhurst, was convicted last month on two counts of murder, one of manslaughter and one of criminally negligent homicide in the 1987 deaths at Good Samaritan Hospital.

Angelo told authorities that he injected the patients with the drug Pavulon so that when they stopped breathing and he was the first on the scene, he could revive them and be regarded as a hero.