Justin Navarro was sentenced to 40 years in prison today for the 2009 murder of Kevin Massey, a 31-year-old gay man, according to Metro Weekly:
[Judge Lynn] Leibovitz said she considered many factors in sentencing Navarro, though U.S. Attorney Sharad Khandelwal asked the judge for a total of 60 years of incarceration – 50 for the murder charge and 10 for obstruction of justice.
In explaining the sentence, Leibovitz pointed out that Navarro was not found guilty of a bias-related crime, which could have lengthened his sentence; that ”PCP played a role” in the homicide; and that Navarro has ”serious anger issues.”
”He lost control in an extreme and brutal way,” she said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office had originally charged Navarro with committing a hate crime because of Massey’s sexual orientation. A statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office describing the attack details Navarro knocking on the victim’s door, at 4211 2nd St. NW, asking ”Where’s the faggot?” before walking in and grabbing a knife from Massey’s kitchen and stabbing him repeatedly. But the jury did not ”make that finding beyond a reasonable doubt,” according to a statement issued by the U.S. Department of Justice.
