Post by Ayla on Jan 15, 2016 9:06:03 GMT 8
A Brooklyn man was sentenced to 20 years in prison Wednesday for a 2014 hate crime that left a transgender woman with permanent neurological damage.
Last month, a jury found Mashawn Sonds, 26, guilty of first-degree assault with a hate-crime enhancement for swinging a plexiglass 2-by-4 at Kimy Hartman, causing her to fall to the ground and strike her head on the sidewalk during a transphobic attack in Bushwick on October 12, 2014. Hartman, a Native American trans woman, spent nearly a month in the hospital, and endured several surgeries that left her with slurred speech, loss of memory, and facial bruising as a result of the attack.
"I may never have the opportunity to live like I used to again," said Hartman, 30, in Brooklyn Supreme Court court Wednesday, according to the New York Daily News. "Because of someone's hate, it had me lose my independence possibly forever."
Sonds was sentenced Wednesday, after what the New York Daily News describes as "a last-ditch effort to throw out the verdict by revealing he knew a juror."
That claim was rejected by judge Danny Chun, though Sonds maintains his innocence and has vowed to appeal his conviction. Sonds was facing as many as 25 years in prison for the first-degree assault as a hate chime, though the assistant district attorney suggested that he be sentenced to 20 years instead.
"Hate led to the defendant's conviction," Brooklyn district attorney Ken Thompson said in the courtroom wednesday, according to the Daily News. "Justice led to his sentence."
www.advocate.com/crime/2016/1/14/brooklyn-transphobic-attacker-sentenced-20-years
Last month, a jury found Mashawn Sonds, 26, guilty of first-degree assault with a hate-crime enhancement for swinging a plexiglass 2-by-4 at Kimy Hartman, causing her to fall to the ground and strike her head on the sidewalk during a transphobic attack in Bushwick on October 12, 2014. Hartman, a Native American trans woman, spent nearly a month in the hospital, and endured several surgeries that left her with slurred speech, loss of memory, and facial bruising as a result of the attack.
"I may never have the opportunity to live like I used to again," said Hartman, 30, in Brooklyn Supreme Court court Wednesday, according to the New York Daily News. "Because of someone's hate, it had me lose my independence possibly forever."
Sonds was sentenced Wednesday, after what the New York Daily News describes as "a last-ditch effort to throw out the verdict by revealing he knew a juror."
That claim was rejected by judge Danny Chun, though Sonds maintains his innocence and has vowed to appeal his conviction. Sonds was facing as many as 25 years in prison for the first-degree assault as a hate chime, though the assistant district attorney suggested that he be sentenced to 20 years instead.
"Hate led to the defendant's conviction," Brooklyn district attorney Ken Thompson said in the courtroom wednesday, according to the Daily News. "Justice led to his sentence."
www.advocate.com/crime/2016/1/14/brooklyn-transphobic-attacker-sentenced-20-years
