Judge imposes life sentence on New York bike path driver who killed 8
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NEW YORK — More than 20 people who lost relatives or suffered physical injuries in the 2017 terrorist attack on a New York bike path that killed eight described crushing pain and sadness Wednesday as the man responsible was sentenced to life in prison. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight Vera Dargoltz’s husband, Hernan Ferruchi, was among five Argentine friends killed on a group vacation in New York. She said her family has been crippled by the Oct. 31, 2017, tragedy, which has given her daughter panic attacks.
“The family, the friends of the victims, we saw our lives collapse and we were just never the same again,” Dargoltz said in court through a Spanish interpreter.
Dargoltz said seeing Sayfullo Saipov, who was convicted of the attack in January, was revolting to her. She compared him to an insect.
“It is hard for me to understand the feeling of disgust over seeing someone in the lowest form of life,” she said. “The feeling that you have when you see a bug, a cockroach, if we can compare him to something.”
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U.S. District Court Judge Vernon S. Broderick imposed a sentence of 10 terms of life in prison plus 260 years on Saipov, 35. A life sentence was determined during the penalty phase of the trial in March, when a 12-member jury could not come to a unanimous decision, meaning a death penalty finding was not possible.
“The conduct in this case is among the worst, if not the worst, I have ever seen,” Broderick said. “Both in terms of the impact it had on the victims and on the sheer unrepentant nature of the defendant.”
Earlier, other people like Dargoltz who spoke of their experiences offered a window into their forever-changed lives. They described debilitating physical injuries, relentless grief and anger.
Gabriela Pabla Pereya’s husband Ariel Erlij was another of the Argentine friends on that trip. Pabla Pereya’s message to Saipov, who prosecutors said was motivated by devotion to the Islamic State when he purposely drove a 6,000-pound truck onto the path, was brief and direct.
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“Your god thinks you’re a coward because you didn’t kill yourself and you killed them,” Pabla Pereya said as she stared down Saipov from her seat in the witness box. “If you want them to accept you and love you, go kill yourself!”
Saipov was convicted in January of killing eight people and seriously injuring 18 others when he drove the rented truck onto a busy bike path in Lower Manhattan on Halloween. Authorities said the attack was the most significant act of terrorism in New York since Sept. 11, 2001.
Although a few of the speakers in court Wednesday asked for Saipov to face them, he mostly kept his head down or avoided their gazes. Several said his failure to look at them illustrated his cowardice.
Aristide Melissas, who suffered a severe head injury and whose wife Marion Van Reeth lost both legs, said that despite Saipov’s efforts, the bond his family has with others hurt by the tragedy brings them hope.
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“For sure, you forced us all to climb mountains we never could imagine to overcome,” Melissas said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Houle said that the trial and what came before it for the families “has shown that this country and these victims are stronger than the defendant and his hate.”
Saipov’s case was among a small number eligible for the death penalty that the Justice Department under the Biden administration sought to pursue, honoring capital punishment decisions from before he took office. Biden’s administration has adopted a policy against the death penalty and a number of death penalty bids from prior administrations have been withdrawn.
Saipov’s trial was divided into two phases — the first to determine his guilt and the second to find whether he should get the death penalty or a life sentence. Since the jury could not reach a unanimous decision at the end of the sentencing phase, he was automatically set to be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in a Federal Bureau of Prisons’s super-maximum facility where contact with others is strictly limited and inmates are closely watched at all times.
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Federal prosecutors had argued that the pain and suffering of victims and their families demanded the harshest possible sentence. Saipov’s lawyers said his life should be spared and that the super-maximum-security prison where he will be held is sufficient to punish him and keep the community safe.
Saipov, a native of Uzbekistan who witnesses said became radicalized after moving to the United States, chose the scenic bike path along the Hudson River to kill as many people as he could.
When given the chance to speak Wednesday, Saipov spent about an hour making rambling claims, including about the devil’s role in attacks on Muslims.
The gallery remained mostly calm throughout his comments. At the end, a relative of a victim shouted out.
“The only act of the devil here is the act you did!” she said.
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Source: The Washington Post
