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Nykerion Nealon,
19, was convicted on Monday of fatally shooting Ahmed
al-Jumaili, 36, in March 2015 in the parking lot of his
apartment complex.
Al-Jumaili had only been in the United States for about three
weeks and authorities had thought the case might have been a
hate crime. They later determined Nealon did not know
al-Jumaili's ethnicity and said he may have been trying to
retaliate for a shooting at his girlfriend's apartment.
Prosecutors said Nealon, who was 17 years old at the time, fired
14 rounds from an AK-47, striking al-Jumaili, who was in the
snow with members of his family, once in the chest.
Al-Jumaili ran to his apartment and collapsed. He was pronounced
dead at a hospital.
"Coming to this country for a new start, only to have it
stripped away from them in such a horrible fashion, has been
unimaginable,” Alia Salem, executive director of the local
branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim
advocacy group, told reporters after the guilty verdict.
Nealon faced up to 99 years in prison and was sentenced by the
same jury that convicted him. A lawyer for Nealon was not
immediately available for comment.
(Reporting by Lisa Maria Garza; Writing by Jon Herskovitz;
Editing by Bill Trott)
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