(CNN) -- A former Ohio doctor was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for poisoning his wife with cyanide five years ago. A Cleveland jury convicted Yazeed Essa last week of aggravated murder for poisoning Rosemarie Essa, his wife and the mother of his two children, with a cyanide-laced calcium pill. Essa, 41, will be eligible for parole in 20 years, Cuyahoga County prosecutor Bill Mason said. His crime occurred before Ohio sentencing laws were changed to give judges discretion in determining when a convicted murderer is eligible for parole. Dressed in an orange jailhouse jumpsuit, Essa did not betray an emotion as Judge Deena Calabrese lamented that she could not hand down a stiffer sentence
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Yazeed Essa was convicted last week of giving wife calcium pills laced with cyanide
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Essa will be eligible for parole in 20 years because crime occurred before change in law
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Judge laments she cannot give Essa a harsher sentence: "You destroyed your family"
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Prosecutors alleged that the philandering doctor poisoned his wife to escape a marriage
"I regret that you have the benefit of committing this crime under the old law," Calabrese told @placeholder.