A former Harvard Business School student was sentenced yesterday to 10 to 20 years in Walpole State Prison for strangling his wife in the couple's Peabody Terrace apartment last summer.

Twenty-seven-year-old A Keith Vaughn was convicted on Feb 16 of manslaughter in the strangulation death of his 22-year-old wife, Princess Johns Vaughn.

Wearing a dark blue suit, Vaughn stood silently with his hands clasped and eyes downcast as the court clerk read the sentence. He was led immediately from the crowded courtroom.

"There can be absolutely no question, this is as tragic a case as this judge has ever sat upon," Middlesex County Superior Court Judge Robert A. Barton said before the sentence was pronounced.

"They both had promising futures," he said of Vaughn and his wife. "Now one is dead and the other stands before this court."

Anxious

During his trial, Vaughn testified that he was anxious and depressed over flunking out of the B-School and about his failing marriage when he put his hands over his wife's throat and squeezed.

Princess Vaughn died on July 23, the day after her husband learned he would not be readmitted in the fall because he had failed three out of four first-semester courses.

Vaughn testified that, on the day she died, his wife asked him for a divorce for the third time in two years. The two spent most of the early morning of July 23 arguing about their marriage, testimony showed. Vaughn testified that his wife would not tell him why she wanted to end the marriage.

When his wife decided to leave at about 2 p.m. according to testimony, Vaughn wiped the makeup off her face, sat on her, and put his hands around her throat. Vaughn testified that he blanked out momentarily and recovered to find her lifeless.

First District Attorney Thomas Reilly, who prosecuted the case, had asked Barton before the sentence was read to send Vaughn to prison for 18 to 20 years.

"I believe this man deserves to be punished and deserves to be punished very severely." Reilly told the judge. The prosecutor said that Vaughn's marital troubles and failing at Harvard were not adequate provocation for the killing.

Barton said that in deciding the sentence he considered about 30 letters from Vaughn's friends and professors at Harvard that testified to the defendant's good character.

Princess Vaughn's father, John Johns, said he was angered by the sentence.

"This is not punishment, I don't think." Johns, who lives in Hayward, Calif, with his wife, LaFaye, said "I think it's a tap on the hand for what he did."

Princess Vaughn's parents attended the trial daily, dressed in black. They flew in from California on Wednesday for the sentencing.

Vaughn's father, William, also attended the trial every day, always sitting with his wife on the opposite side of the courtroom from the Johnses. Yesterday, he stared blankly at the bench and wept quietly after the sentence was read and his son was led from the courtroom.

"I feel numb. I'm stunned by the whole thing," William Vaughn said. "It's a low blow, but so is life." The father said he was worried about how his son would survive in the tough Walpole Prison.

"He has a very difficult time ahead of him," Reilly said of Vaughn after the sentencing.

Reilly said he was satisfied with the sentence, commenting, "Obviously I requested a higher sentence, but the judge's job is to listen to both sides... you can never quarrel with that."

"This is a classic case where nobody wins," said Vaughn's defense attorney Willie J. Davis. "If there is a more tragic case, I've never seen it."

Davis said he would need a few days to think about appending the case. He said he would probably file a request for appeal so he can obtain could transcripts to determine if there were any appealatic effort law.

You cannot by any stretch of the imagination say it was unfair" Davis said of the sentence.

Vaughn was originally charged with first degree murder but Barton early in the trial dropped then charged to recorded-degree murder. The jury found Vaughn guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter which criteras process that can range from a suspended sentence to 20 years in jail.

Davis said Vaughn could be paroled in three years