BRUNSWICK, GEORGIA - JANUARY 07: Travis McMichael, left, speaks with his attorney Jason B. Sheffield during the sentencing of he and his father Greg McMichael and neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan in the Glynn County Courthouse, on January 7, 2022 in Brunswick, Georgia. Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael and William "Roddie" Bryan Jr. will be sentenced for murder of Ahmaud Arbery as he ran through their south Georgia neighborhood. (Photo by Stephen B. Morton-Pool/Getty Images)
SUMMARY:
A judge in the federal case of the men who killed Georgia jogger Ahmaud Arbery , 36-year-old Travis McMichael has been sentenced to life in prison plus 10 years on federal hate crime charges.
McMichaels was already convicted of murder in this case on the state level. His attorney had requested that he serve time in federal prison saying he had received sevaral death threats. The request was denied.
Greg McMichael and neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan are also schedueled to be sentenced on Monday.
BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — The white man who fatally shot Ahmaud Arbery after chasing the 25-year-old Black man in a Georgia neighborhood was sentenced Monday to life in prison for committing a federal hate crime.
Travis McMichael was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood in the port city of Brunswick. His punishment is largely symbolic, as McMichael was sentenced earlier this year to life without parole in a Georgia state court for Arbery’s murder.
Wood said McMichael had received a “fair trial.”
“And it’s not lost on the court that it was the kind of trial that Ahmaud Arbery did not receive before he was shot and killed,” the judge said.
Before the sentencing, she heard from members of Arbery’s family. His mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said she feels every shot that was fired at her son everyday.
“It’s so unfair, so unfair, so unfair that he was killed while he was not even committing a crime,” she said.
McMichael declined to address the court, but his attorney, Amy Copeland, said her client had no convictions before the charges for Arbery’s slaying and had served in the U.S. Coast Guard. She called for a more lenient sentence.
McMichael was one of three defendants convicted in February of federal hate crime charges. His father, Greg McMichael, and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan had sentencing hearings scheduled later Monday.
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