A Brooklyn man who insists he didn’t shoot and kill a young father at a 2011 house party was slapped with a sentence of 40 years to life in Brooklyn Supreme Court yesterday.
Jonathan Thomas, 21, was convicted last month of emptying his handgun into a crowded East New York backyard party on June 18, 2011.
Eight people were hit, and Donzell Rogers, 21, was killed.Judge Neil Firetog sentenced Thomas to 20 years to life on the murder charge and ten years each on two counts of assault.
“My condolences go out to his family, but I’m innocent. I’m innocent,” Thomas said in court.
But Helena Rogers, the mother of the man shot dead, returned harsh words.
“Through the whole trial you wouldn’t even look me in the face,” she said. “You deserve the most time that can be given you.”
The thuggish Thomas already had an illegal handgun conviction when he was collared for killing Rogers, and as he awaited trial he slashed a fellow inmate in the Bronx, according to assistant district attorney Howard Jackson.
“What the defendant did was so despicable and unnecessary,” Jackson said. “If he had not run out of bullets he would have kept firing.”