Shawn Lewis was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to setting aspiring DC actor Douglas Farley on fire, killing him.
Farley was 38.
“I’m very apologetic to his family and children,” Lewis told a courtroom full of Farley’s family and friends Friday. “We had ongoing problems and they kept going and going and they wouldn’t stop,” said Lewis. “That day I made a terrible mistake and decided to take matters into my own hands.”
Lewis pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in July, saying that on June 28th he threw liquid on Farley, lit a newspaper on fire and tossed the newspaper onto him. Farley was engulfed in flames and seriously injured, charging documents state. Farley died five days later.
“Nothing I say can possibly heal the suffering the family has undergone and will undergo,” said Judge Russell Canan in handing down the 20 year sentence. “You committed a horrific crime Mr. Lewis.”
Farley’s family asked Canan to enforce the maximum penalty allowed by the plea deal, a sentence of 24 years.
“There’s too many bad people in this world. And we got one of the good ones taken from us too soon,” said Marnell Hughes, Farley’s childhood friend. “That’s not fair.”
