A judge on Friday sentenced a Brooklyn, N.Y., man to 20 years in prison in the shooting death of an 18-year-old Trinidadian man who flirted with his wife while she was riding a bus, reports the New York Daily News.
Lawrence Jones was found guilty of the premeditated murder of Isaiah Roberts, who was lured to a location in the New York City borough’s Bedford-Stuyvesant section by another person to get revenge for the flirtation, the report says. Roberts, who aspired to become an architect, was shot in the back on May 25, 2012, as he tried to run away after he and Jones engaged in a heated argument, the report says.
Jones says he is innocent of the crime and that prosecutors have evidence to prove it, including a witness who recanted his trial testimony, the Daily News reports.
“Jones killed this young man for no other reason than he believed he disrespected [his wife], a simple flirtation on a bus, that happened long before this incident,” acting Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Michael Gary said during the sentencing.
Read more at the New York Daily News.