Baltimore County Circuit Judge Vicki Ballou-Watts looked at a Baltimore man standing before her who had been convicted of murdering a great-grandfather during a dispute over kids throwing eggs.
She told Jose Bassat, 30, that she couldn?t understand why a man with a solid family and good educational background could commit such a senseless crime.
“This is your second murder conviction within the span of three years,” Ballou-Watts said Wednesday.
Then the judge threw the book at Bassat ? sentencing him to the maximum penalty allowed for second-degree murder: 30 years in prison.
“It?s the only appropriate sentence given his criminal history,” said Baltimore County prosecutor Stephanie Porter.
Bassat spoke only a few words during his sentencing hearing, but his attorney, Larry Polen, said Bassat has great sorrow over the Oct. 30, 2004, shooting death of George King, 73. Police described the Dundalk resident and Korean War veteran as an innocent victim walking down the street.
Bassat?s trial was marked with accusations of witness intimidation.
Afterward, jurors asked the judge that their identities not be made public. Two witnesses testified that Bassat had threatened their lives before he was arrested.
“We are concerned for our safety,” jurors wrote.
Ballou-Watts said one witness was so scared that she “turned her seat on the witness stand away” in order to avoid looking at Bassat.
“There were other witnesses who were reluctant to come forward,” the judge said.
On the evening before Halloween, a group of teens threw eggs at a house where Bassat?s friends were having a party. Someone at the party called Bassat and Jose Emmanuel Otero, 24, who drove to Avondale Road to settle the score, prosecutors said.
The men fired at the group of teens, but missed as they ran away, Porter said.
A short time later, Bassat spotted King, mistook him for a boy, and opened fire, she said. King was hit in the leg and bled extensively. He died at Johns Hopkins Bayview Hospital.
Otero pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Bassat was convicted of an unrelated second-degree murder in Baltimore City in 2006 and sentenced to seven years in prison.
In a written victim impact statement, King?s sister, Yvonne Evans, said her family is “devastated over this senseless act that took my brother?s life.”
