Husband Charged In Boy's Torture Death Angling For Deal After Testifying Against Convicted Wife
Jacob Maloberti took the stand against his own wife and told jurors he never touched the boy in their care. Now his lawyer is asking Westmoreland County prosecutors to reward that cooperation with a plea deal — and a judge has given them until November 20 to decide.
Case at a glance
- Jacob Maloberti — Defendant, adoptive father of Landon, accused
- Lauren Maloberti — Jacob's wife, adoptive mother of Landon, convicted
- Ken Noga — Defense attorney for Jacob Maloberti, official
- Cassidy Hatten — Assistant District Attorney, Westmoreland County, official
- Christopher Feliciani — Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court Judge, official
Next: Jacob Maloberti is due back in Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court on Nov. 20. By then, Judge Christopher Feliciani expects prosecutors to either present a formal plea offer or set the case for trial; Assistant District Attorney Cassidy Hatten told the court a decision is expected by then.
A 5-year-old hospitalized with more than 100 injuries
Landon was five years old when he arrived at a hospital in late January 2023 covered in injuries — prosecutors say more than 100 of them. He did not survive.
Lauren Maloberti had taken custody of Landon as a newborn in 2017 and formally adopted him two years later, in 2019. She and her husband, Jacob Maloberti, testified they were high school sweethearts who found each other again as adults and married in 2021.
Prosecutors say Landon's injuries were the result of prolonged beatings and isolation inside the home he shared with the Malobertis in Delmont, Pennsylvania. Both Lauren and Jacob were charged in connection with his death.
The jury's verdict against his adoptive mother
Lauren Maloberti, 37, stood trial in Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court this year. The trial lasted nine days before it reached the jury.
In May, jurors convicted her of third-degree murder, two counts of aggravated assault, and single counts of child endangerment and conspiracy. They acquitted her of first-degree homicide and involuntary manslaughter.
In plain terms: jurors found Lauren responsible for Landon's death, for assaulting him, for endangering his welfare and for conspiring in the abuse — but stopped short of finding she killed him with premeditation, which is what a first-degree homicide conviction would have required, or that his death came from ordinary recklessness alone, which is what involuntary manslaughter covers.
Last month, a judge sentenced Lauren Maloberti to serve 31½ to 63 years in prison. Earlier this year, while she was in jail following her conviction, she had already filed court papers seeking a divorce from Jacob.
"We are asking they talk to the victim's family and take his cooperation into consideration," — Ken Noga, Jacob Maloberti's defense attorney, to TribLive
The husband who testified — and says his hands were clean
Jacob Maloberti, 36, was charged alongside his wife in Landon's death, but his case never went to trial alongside hers. Instead, he took the stand for the prosecution and testified against her.
He told jurors he never saw Lauren injure Landon. But he said that in the three years since their arrests, he had come to believe she was responsible for the boy's fatal injuries.
Lauren told a different story — both at her trial and again at her sentencing hearing last month. She testified she suspected her husband of physically mistreating Landon.
TribLive's coverage of Monday's hearing does not spell out the specific counts Jacob still faces beyond describing him as charged in connection with the torture death of his wife's adopted son. What is clear is that more than three years after Landon died, his own case is still open and unresolved.
What the lawyers told the judge this week
Jacob Maloberti appeared Monday before Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court Judge Christopher Feliciani. His defense attorney, Ken Noga, told the judge that prosecutors had not yet made a formal plea offer.
"We are asking they talk to the victim's family and take his cooperation into consideration," Noga said, according to TribLive — asking the district attorney's office to credit his client's testimony against Lauren when deciding how to resolve his own case.
Assistant District Attorney Cassidy Hatten told the court those conversations with the family are ongoing, and that a decision is expected later this month.
Feliciani ordered Maloberti back to court on Nov. 20. By then, prosecutors will either present a formal plea bargain or the case will be scheduled for trial.
A marriage that didn't survive the case
Jacob and Lauren Maloberti told jurors they were high school sweethearts who reunited as adults and married in 2021 — two years before Landon's death.
That marriage did not survive the case. Earlier this year, while in jail after her conviction, Lauren filed paperwork to divorce the man she once shared a home, and a courtroom, with.
What happens next
Jacob Maloberti is due back in Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court on Nov. 20. By then, Judge Christopher Feliciani expects prosecutors to either present a formal plea offer or set the case for trial; Assistant District Attorney Cassidy Hatten told the court a decision is expected by then.
How this plays in court
A prosecutor weighing credit for a cooperating witness looks first at what the testimony actually delivered. Jacob Maloberti's account — that he never saw Lauren hurt Landon but came to suspect her responsibility only after their arrest — helped convict her, but on the third-degree murder count, not first-degree homicide. That gap matters: it tells the DA's office his testimony was useful, not decisive, which shapes how much credit his lawyer can realistically ask for.
The defense's specific ask — have the DA talk to the family and weigh the cooperation — is a common and often effective move. It puts the final call in a context where the people most harmed by Landon's death have a voice, and it frames three years of cooperation as something that helped close the case rather than something that obstructed it.
A jury or a judge weighing Jacob's own exposure, though, will ask the question prosecutors have likely already asked: what did he know, and when did he know it. He lived in the house with Landon every day. The three-year gap between the arrests and his claimed realization that his wife caused the fatal injuries is exactly the kind of detail a prosecutor presses on before agreeing to any deal.
Whatever specific counts Jacob is still carrying, Lauren's sentence — 31½ to 63 years — sets a ceiling nobody expects her husband to approach. The real number to watch on Nov. 20 is how much value the district attorney's office places on testimony that helped convict her of three of five charges while clearing her of the top two.
- TribLIVE.com: Husband Charged In Boy's Torture Death Angling For Deal After Testifying Against Convicted Wife
- TribLIVE.com: Delmont man who testified against wife awaits potential plea deal in child torture death