Dad Sentenced For Manslaughter After Forcing 6-Year-Old To Run On Speeding Treadmill

A New Jersey father who was convicted of aggravated manslaughter and endangering a child in the death of his 6-year-old son was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Friday.

Christopher Gregor, 31, was captured in a shocking video played in court that showed him forcing Corey Micciolo to run on a treadmill at high speed. The boy died on May 31 of injuries related to his father’s abuse.

Surveillance footage from March 20, 2021, played during Gregor’s trial, shows Corey repeatedly struggling to stay on top of the moving belt of a treadmill. The boy falls on his face and his back six times as his father continues to force him back on the treadmill. At one point in the footage, Gregor seems to be biting his son’s head, HuffPost previously reported .

Corey’s mother, Breanna Micciolo testified at his trial that she filed for emergency custody on March 31, 2021, after seeing her son’s bruises and learning about the treadmill incident. She told the jury that she was “in fear for Corey’s life.”

Micciolo told the jury she took Corey in for multiple medical tests after she grew alarmed about the bruising, but on April 1, 2021, a doctor who treated her son said he did not find signs of infection or respiratory distress.

Corey was released back into his mother’s care at about 1 a.m. Text messages revealed in court showed Gregor accusing her of kidnapping their son because she had missed the 7 p.m. drop-off deadline the night before.

Micciolo testified that Gregor called her the following day to inform her Corey was sick, and that he had taken him to the hospital.

Surveillance footage from the hospital lobby shows Gregor carrying his son over his shoulder. An emergency room nurse testified in court that Corey had suffered seizures and was pronounced dead later that day.

Gregor was charged with child endangerment in July 2021. He was charged with his son’s murder in March 2022, after a state expert witness determined that Corey’s death was the result of blunt force trauma, Ocean County prosecutors announced .

Speaking at his sentencing hearing Friday, Gregor urged the court to consider his relationship with Corey outside the evidence presented at trial, saying he loved his son and had fond memories of him.

Gregor continued by apologizing to Micciolo, stating that he regrets not bringing Corey to the hospital sooner.

“I understand this single moment will overshadow all of the others, but it’s not representative of who I am, who Corey was and his relationship with me and him,” Gregor said. “I want to assure you that on April 2, I did nothing to cause Corey’s passing, I didn’t hurt my son, I love him and I still do.”

Micciolo, however, rejected Gregor’s apology and pleaded for the maximum sentence, stating that he had shown no remorse after the incident and during the trial.

Wearing a T-shirt that said, “There is no excuse for abuse,” Micciolo said she had been living a nightmare since her son’s death and feared that Gregor would come after her and her family upon his release from prison.

“You have stolen my full potential at happiness,” she said to Gregor. “I will never have my son back, my family will never feel whole again, my daughter will never get to meet her brother, and my boyfriend will never get to be the father that the defendant should have been to our son.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story inaccurately identified the injuries that caused Corey Micciolo’s death.