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Father and son, 36-year-old Travis McMichael and 66-year-old Greg McMichael, were given an additional life sentence on Monday on federal hate crime charges for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, NBC News reported
.Travis was sentenced to life in prison plus ten years. Greg received a life sentence and an additional seven years.
U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey demanded that the two serve their sentences in the state prison and not federal prison, despite Travis’ attorney, Amy Lee Copeland, asking for her client to serve in federal prison. She claimed he would be killed in state prison due to “hundreds of threats.” Greg’s attorney, A.J. Balbo, claimed his client wasn’t in the right medical state to serve his sentence in a state prison (yet was medically fit to kill Arbery). She told the two before sentencing them that they had a fair trial, unlike Ahmaud Arbery.
“You killed a man on Feb. 23, 2020,” Judge Godbey said. “The events depicted in the video, they are seared in the annals of this court and no doubt in your mind forever.”
Arbery’s family and attorneys requested that his murderers serve in state prison.
Travis declined to speak, but Greg spoke to the family stating, “the loss [they’ve] endured is beyond description. There’s no words for it.”
He continued, adding he “never wanted any of this to happen. There was no malice in my heart, or my son’s heart, that day.” He apologized to his silent son and told him he should’ve never put him in the position they were in.
Arbery’s father, Marcus, expressed his sadness in the courtroom before sentencing and asked that they receive the coldest sentence possible.
“…these three devils have broken my heart into pieces that cannot be found or repaired,” Marcus said in court.
The third man involved in the murder, 52-year-old William “Roddie” Bryan, has his sentencing scheduled for Monday. The judge also requested Bryan serve his sentence in state prison.