Ex-Deputy Who Killed Wife Gets 13-Year Term : Courts: Anthony Michael Scalzo receives the maximum prison sentence. He blamed the 1989 shooting on prescription drugs he had been taking.

A former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who claimed he was under the influence of a sleeping pill when he shot and killed his wife was sentenced Wednesday to 13 years in prison.

Anthony Michael Scalzo, 51, said he was under the influence of a prescription drug called Halcion when he shot his wife, Joan, 44, in the right cheek. After hearing her scream for help, he shot her again in the right ear, according to testimony. She died at the scene.

The shooting occurred on Feb. 20, 1989, as the couple was in the process of divorcing after 23 years of marriage, prosecutors said.

Scalzo’s attorney, Howard R. Price of Beverly Hills, argued that Scalzo was a gentle person with no criminal record and no history of wife abuse before the shooting. Price attributed the shooting to an organic brain disorder caused by Scalzo’s use of Halcion and several other central nervous system depressants and muscle relaxants.

The drugs were prescribed for Scalzo, an 11-year sheriff’s veteran, after he suffered a back injury during an inmate disturbance at a county jail facility where he worked, Price said.

Scalzo’s injuries forced him to retire from the force in 1984, Price said, and he continued to suffer from pain and depression.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert S. Nishinaka successfully argued that Scalzo should receive 13 years in prison--the maximum sentence--for voluntary manslaughter. Nishinaka argued there is no proof that Scalzo was taking Halcion or other drugs.

Scalzo was originally charged with murder but was allowed to plead guilty last May to a reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter.

Prosecutors said they permitted the plea bargain in part because of Scalzo’s claim that he was under the influence of drugs at the time of the killing. It would be difficult to prove malice required for a murder conviction, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth Barshop, who helped prosecute the case.

During the four-day sentencing hearing, Scalzo himself took the witness stand to tell San Fernando Superior Court Judge John H. Major he was sorry. “If I could change places with my wife, I would do it without hesitation,” Scalzo said tearfully.

But Scalzo’s 16-year-old daughter, Claudia, told the judge drugs had nothing to do with the killing. “He’s manipulative. He’s mean. He’s cruel,” said Claudia Scalzo, adding that Scalzo possessed those traits before taking the drugs.

The drug, which is manufactured by Upjohn Co. of Kalamazoo, Mich., is the most widely used prescription sleeping pill in the world, Barshop said.

Price said the federal Food and Drug Administration has received reports from doctors and patients linking the drug Halcion to 39 homicides or attempted homicides and 261 intentional overdoses since 1984.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Upjohn by a group of Halcion users in Cincinnati seeking to withdraw the drug from the market or force the company to warn doctors and patients of potential adverse symptoms, Price added.

Company officials have been quoted as denying that the drug causes any adverse effects.

Price said the drug has been successfully used as a defense in murder cases in Utah and Michigan.