A rich inventory dealer was resentenced on Tuesday to 5 years in jail for his function within the fiery demise of a person who was serving to him secretly dig tunnels for a nuclear bunker underneath a house in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C.
Daniel Beckwitt already has been incarcerated for almost three years and is statutorily eligible for parole as a result of he has served greater than 1 / 4 of his sentence. Noting that Beckwitt might be launched quickly, Montgomery County Circuit Court docket Choose Margaret Schweitzer additionally sentenced him to 5 years of supervised probation after his launch and ordered him to carry out 250 hours of group service.
"I hope that is your alternative to present again to our group," she stated. "I hope you do what you are able to do, which is use your intelligence for good."
Beckwitt, 30, initially was sentenced in 2019 to 9 years in jail after a jury convicted him of second-degree "wicked coronary heart" homicide and involuntary manslaughter within the September 2017 demise of 21-year-old Askia Khafra.
However a state appeals courtroom overturned Beckwitt's homicide conviction in January 2021, saying his conduct didn't show "an excessive disregard for human life moderately prone to trigger demise." Maryland's Court docket of Particular Appeals additionally upheld his conviction for involuntary manslaughter.
The Maryland Court docket of Appeals, the state's highest courtroom, subsequently upheld Beckwitt's involuntary manslaughter conviction. The courtroom concluded that Beckwitt's failure to supply Khafra with a fairly protected office within the tunnels constituted gross negligence.
Beckwitt has been imprisoned since his April 2019 trial conviction. He did not testify at his trial, however he apologized to Khafra's mother and father earlier than Schweitzer sentenced him in June 2019. On Tuesday, Beckwitt described Khafra as a superb good friend and stated he nonetheless mourns him "to today."
"Not a day goes by that I do not take into consideration all the nice issues Askia ought to have gone on to do," he stated. "The world wants extra individuals like Askia Khafra, not fewer."
Dia Khafra, Askia's father, expressed frustration with Beckwitt's "mild" sentence and stated he feels as if his household has been "stabbed with the knife of victimization over again."
"I really feel that as a sufferer, all that mattered to the system have been guidelines, procedures, legalese - not the overarching proven fact that my son, my pricey son's life, had been intentionally terminated," he instructed the decide earlier than she handed down Beckwitt's new sentence.
Dia Khafra beforehand stated he solely met Beckwitt as soon as, when he dropped off his son at their dwelling. He appeared shy.
"I at all times feared one thing harmful would occur to him," the elder Khafra stated.
Firefighters discovered Khara's bare, charred physique within the basement after a fireplace erupted in Beckwitt's dwelling in Bethesda, Maryland.
Prosecutors stated the intense hoarding situations within the dwelling prevented him from escaping. At trial, Montgomery County prosecutor Marybeth Ayres stated Beckwitt sacrificed security for secrecy and created "demise entice" situations in the home.
"The habits was grossly negligent on so many ranges," Ayres stated Tuesday. "It wasn't only one factor."
Protection lawyer Robert Bonsib instructed jurors that Beckwitt screamed for assist from neighbors and risked his personal security in a failed try to rescue his good friend.
"This was an unintentional demise, pure and easy, and it wasn't supposed," Bonsib instructed the decide on Tuesday.
Khafra met Beckwitt on-line. Beckwitt had invested cash in an organization Khafra was making an attempt to launch as he helped Beckwitt dig the community of tunnels. A prosecutor described Beckwitt as a talented laptop hacker who had a paranoid fixation on a doable nuclear assault by North Korea.
Beckwitt went to elaborate lengths to maintain the venture a secret, prosecutors stated. He tried to trick Khafra into considering they have been digging the tunnels in Virginia as an alternative of Maryland by having him don "blackout glasses" earlier than taking him on an extended drive. Beckwitt additionally used web "spoofing" to make it seem they have been digging in Virginia, in line with prosecutors.
Khafra labored within the tunnels for days at a time, consuming and sleeping there and urinating and defecating right into a bucket that Beckwitt lowered all the way down to him. The tunnels had lights, an air circulation system and a heater.
A gap within the concrete basement ground led to a shaft that dropped down 20 toes into tunnels that branched out roughly 200 toes (60 meters) in size. Investigators concluded the blaze was ignited by a faulty electrical outlet within the basement.
The decide stated she believes that Beckwitt's "mental conceitedness" misled him to imagine that all the pieces would go as he deliberate on the home. She expressed sympathy for Khafra's household and stated she understood why his father is annoyed.
"Please don't equate the variety of years (in jail) to the worth of the sufferer's life on this case," Schweitzer stated. "It simply cannot occur."
Bonsib, the protection lawyer, stated he expects Beckwitt to be launched from jail inside a few months "at most."