Man who stabbed mom 70 times is sentenced

A man convicted of murdering his mother because she wanted to return him to a mental hospital was sentenced Friday to 28 years to life in prison.

Jamie Balint, 35, was convicted six months ago in the 2003 death of Pamela Balint, 55, whom he hit with a barbell and stabbed 70 times with scissors and a vegetable peeler. An Orange County jury found that he was sane at the time.

“Our position was that he did suffer from a long-standing mental illness,” prosecutor Ebrahim Baytieh said, “but that he knew what he was doing, knew it was wrong and understood the nature and quality of what he did.”

Balint, who had been in and out of mental hospitals for nearly two decades, had escaped from one just weeks before the slaying.