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Cindy Margotta, center, Connie Dabate‘s mother, said outside the courthouse that she can feel the presence of her daughter.

Richard Dabate, in a Connecticut Department of Correction photo. Dabate will be sentenced in state court Thursday for the 2015 murder of his wife, Connie Dabate, at the family’s Ellington home.

Cindy Margotta, Connie Dabate’s mother, spoke to the media outside the courthouse. She said she felt the presence of her daughter.

Connie Margotta Dabate’s family members and friends wore these pins in court with her picture on them.

VERNON — Calling it a brutal, calculating and incomprehensible act, a judge Thursday sentenced Richard Dabate to 65 years in prison for fatally shooting his wife in 2015 and claiming she died during a home invasion.

Judge Corinne Klatt sentenced the 46-year-old Ellington resident in state Superior Court in Rockville to 60 years for murder and five years for tampering with evidence. She also sentenced him to one year, which will run concurrently, for making a false statement to police.

Noting the profound loss expressed by eight family members and friends of victim Connie Margotta Dabate, 39, Klatt said she believed “the world is truly a lesser place without Connie in it.”

The sentence falls a year shy of the maximum family and friends called for during the hearing, which lasted more than 2 ½ hours.

“I’m at a loss for words,” Dabate’s father, Richard Dabate Sr., said of the sentence.

Keith Margotta, Connie Dabate’s brother, said he was “taken back by the sentence.”

“Sixty-five years. I thought that it was appropriate. And just,” he said. “It enables us to get a little bit of closure — although nothing will bring Connie back — so that as a family we can move forward.”

Dabate’s lawyer, Trent LaLima, signaled that he plans to appeal. He tried to get his client released on an appeal bond before the prosecutor, Tolland State’s Attorney Matthew Gedansky, noted that the law does not allow appeal bonds in murder cases.

Dabate proclaimed his innocence in a brief statement before the sentencing.

“I’m here before you as an innocent man,” he told the judge. He said his wife was killed by an “unknown individual” during a home invasion.

“I will never stop fighting for justice for my wife Connie, who I think about every single day.”

After a 22-day trial, a jury on May 10 found Dabate guilty of all charges. The trial was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the death of one of his lawyers, Hubert J. Santos.

Gedansky and state police said Dabate staged the killing, pretending an intruder did it, because his girlfriend was pregnant with his baby. She was due about eight weeks after Connie Dabate’s death, according to the warrant for his arrest.

“This was a cold, methodical plan to avoid the consequence of his infidelity,” Gedansky said Thursday.

The jury heard from more than 130 witnesses and saw more than 600 pieces of evidence. Faced with having to prove there was no intruder, Gedansky built a case on electronic evidence. That evidence came from the couple’s alarm system, cellphones, emails, Facebook posts and messages, and movements recorded by the victim’s Fitbit — gaining national attention for the case as the “Fitbit murder.”

The Fitbit recorded Connie Dabate’s movements for nearly an hour after her husband claimed she was killed by an intruder, according to the warrant and trial testimony.

“The evidence in this case was strong and it was made even stronger by the defendant’s motive,” Gedansky said after the sentencing in a written statement. “With the judge’s sentence today, Connie’s family and friends are now able to get some measure of justice for her senseless murder. Mr. Dabate will now be held responsible for this cold and heinous act.”

Eight of Connie Dabate’s family members and friends stepped up to the prosecutor’s desk to tell Klatt about their loss. The murder left a gaping hole in their lives and traumatized them and his own sons, they said.

They described Connie as a generous, caring person and loving mother with a good sense of humor. She worked to help family members with medical problems and lifted people’s spirits with her words and actions, they said.

Kim Phillips, a close friend, said that even at her saddest moments, Connie was able to make her laugh. She also had an uncanny way of sending a text or an email to give her a boost and it was “always in your inbox at just the right time,” she said.

“Nothing else in the world mattered when I was with her,” Phillips said.

Donna Judge, who is married to Connie’s brother Keith Margotta, said when her husband was sick, “It was Connie, and only Connie, who showed up at Rockville General Hospital to hold my hand.”

Some members of the Margotta family became seriously ill, with doctors telling them their illnesses were exacerbated by stress. One of those family members was Connie’s father, Ken, who died of cancer before seeing justice for his daughter, Gedansky said.

The father would cry every holiday after his daughter’s death, according to one of Connie’s older sisters, Leslie Garabedian.

Some relatives, like Connie’s other sister Marliese Margotta Shaw, refused to say Richard Dabate’s name. Shaw, who called him “the murderer” or “the killer,” said all but $6.24 of Connie’s money disappeared after her death. It was “not even enough to buy a shirt, shoes or a backpack” for the boys, she said.

Richard Dabate’s story that an intruder came into the house and killed their mother made the boys believe they were not safe, even in the their own home, said Tom Garabedian, Leslie’s husband. The boys moved in with their family in the spring of 2017 — the year their father was arrested.

One Christmas after her sister’s death, one of Connie’s sons asked Leslie Garabedian, “Aunt Leslie, do you know what I want for Christmas?” she said. She thought he was going to ask for a toy, she said.

“ ‘I want my mom back for three days … or three hours,’ ” he told her.

Once suspicion fell on Dabate, the family was fearful of him.

“The killer has no remorse. For almost seven years, our family has been in fear for our lives,” Marliese Shaw said.

Cindy Margotta, Connie’s mother, was the last relative to talk to her before she was killed.

The first thing she said when she got on the phone was, “I love you mom, you are my best friend,” Margotta said.

Richard Dabate’s family also had a chance to address the judge. Five relatives asked for leniency, saying Dabate was never violent and reached out to help when they needed a hand, whether it was with a computer problem or to install an air conditioner.

His aunt, Janice Dabate, said, “He would always help around the house. He’d put the air conditioners in … I really have a hard time believing that Connie’s family, deep down inside, believes he did it.”

Another relative, Gerald Bidwell, said, “I must say, I have never seen Rick angry or have harsh words for anyone.”

Police were called to the family’s Ellington home on Birchview Drive two days before Christmas on the morning of Dec. 23, 2015.

Police and firefighters found Richard Dabate tied to a metal folding chair while lying on the kitchen floor. Minutes later, the lifeless body of Connie Dabate, who had been shot in the head and abdomen, was discovered in the basement, the warrant said.

Richard Dabate told state police he dropped off his two boys at school that morning and headed to work. But he turned back when he realized he had forgotten his laptop, according to the warrant. He also claimed the alarm on his home pinged that there was a problem.

But based on electronic evidence, including his cellphone and alarm, police believe Richard Dabate never tried to go to work the morning his wife was killed, the warrant said.

Dabate told investigators that when he returned to the house, he heard a noise upstairs and assumed it was a family cat, the warrant stated.

When he went to investigate, Dabate claimed, he encountered an intruder who was going through his bedroom, the warrant said. The man’s voice sounded like the actor Vin Diesel, he told investigators, according to the warrant.

Dabate claimed the intruder threatened him with a knife and demanded his wallet and PIN numbers for his bank cards, the warrant stated. Connie Dabate had gone to a local gym, but returned home because the class was canceled.

Richard Dabate said when he heard his wife return home, he alerted her that someone was in the house, the warrant stated. He told her family the next day that he believed she was trying to save him by going for his guns, which were in the basement of the home, according to testimony during the trial.

Connie Dabate was shot by one of her husband’s guns, the warrant said. There were no items taken from the home, and Richard Dabate’s wallet was found in the yard — its contents intact, state police said.

When a police dog sniffed for the intruder’s scent, the dog went right to Dabate, the warrant said.