A judge turned the sentencing of a Brooklyn murderer into a political soapbox Tuesday — saying pro-gun activists’ hands were stained with the blood of the killer’s victim.
“I don’t care what the gun lobby says. They’re out of touch with reality. They’re out of touch with what happens on our street,” declared state Supreme Court Justice Albert Tomei. “We are eating each other’s mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters every day.”
The judge then sarcastically referred to the idea of American exceptionalism.
“We are exceptional. We are very good at killing ourselves.”
Tomei made his anti-gun-lobby rant as he slapped gun-wielding Michael Magnan, 21, with the maximum sentence of 25 years to life for using an illegal .38-caliber handgun to fatally shoot a livery-cab passenger on Aug. 18, 2012, in Flatlands.
The victim, Nikita Grebelsky, 23, was shot in the head and died before the horrified eyes of his sister.
“I don’t know what’s happening in this country,” Tomei said. “But we are going to wither away because we are cannibalizing each other.”
Grebelsky’s mother gave an emotional victim-impact statement in heavily accented English.
“He had his whole life ahead of him, or so we all thought . . . The pain of his sudden and tragic death will never leave us,” said Alexandra Katrin.
“Even now, although he is no longer with us, his heart keeps beating somewhere.”
Grebelsky’s friend Olga Zamanskaya read another victim-impact statement that was signed by over 75 friends of Grebelsky in New York and Moscow.
“This violent, cynical, ruthless murder deprived us of a friend, a son, a colleague,” Zamanskaya read aloud.
“This is why we ask for justice. That is why . . . we ask for the toughest punishment for this man.”
Just before Magnan was sentenced he stood up in court to say he was sorry to the shattered family.
“I would like to apologize to the victim’s family and to my own family for having to go through this ordeal,” Magnan said.