The Brazilian au pair who pleaded guilty to colluding with ex-IRS special agent Brendan Banfield’s sick plot to murder his wife and a stranger was sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday.
Juliana Peres Magalhães was slapped with the hefty sentence despite pleading guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter in 2024 and giving damning testimony against Banfield in his double murder trial — after which he was convicted of killing his wife, Christine, 37, and sex-seeking stranger Joseph Ryan, 38.
Judge Penney Azcarate called the case the “most serious manslaughter scenario” the court had ever seen, as she ordered the 25-year-old nanny to 10 years behind bars and another two years suspended, NBC News reported.
Juliana Peres Magalhães was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to colluding with Brendan Banfield in his plot to murder his wife and Joseph Ryan. APBanfield, 40, and Magalhaes hatched a plan to kill the former federal agent’s wife months after the two struck up an affair while she was living in his Virginia home taking care of his and his wife’s daughter, she testified against Banfield.
The scheming pair started an online fetish account, pretending to be Christine, and lured in Ryan to purportedly help Christine live out her fantasy of being raped, she told jurors during the sordid, three week trial.
Ryan arrived at the Banfield’s home on Feb. 24, 2023, armed with a knife as instructed, and began playing out the kinky sex-session with an unsuspecting Christine — a former nurse for sexual assault victims — the au pair testified.
Magalhães waited in a car outside the house and called Banfield to tell him an intruder was in their house — but it was all part of an elaborate frame job, according to prosecutors.
Magalhães, 25, and Banfield, 40, struck up an affair while she was living in his Virginia home. Commonwealth of Virginia
Brendan Banfield was convicted of killing his wife, Christine. Christine Banfield/InstagramBanfield ran into the home with Magalhães, leaving the young Banfield girl alone in the basement, and shot Ryan with his service weapon to make it look like he’d heroically saved his wife’s life.
He then stabbed Christine multiple times in the neck, trying to make the scene appear as though Ryan killed her, the nanny said.
Magalhaes, who was arrested eight months after the killings, was hoping for time served in exchange for her plea deal and testimony.
Banfield’s lawyer claimed during the closing arguments of his trial that Magalhães made up the whole story to save her own skin.
“Her entire story has been bought and paid for,” attorney John Carroll said, claiming she may sell her story for a documentary about the grotesque case.
