A white man who fatally stabbed a gay Black dancer at a Brooklyn gas station in 2023 was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Thursday, ending a hate-crime case that shocked the city’s L.G.B.T.Q. community.
The man, Dmitriy Popov, was 17 years old when he plunged a five-and-a-half-inch blade into the chest of the dancer, O’Shae Sibley.
The attack happened after Mr. Popov and a group of his friends began yelling racist and homophobic slurs at Mr. Sibley and his friends, all gay men of color who had been blasting Beyoncé while filling up a rental car with gas, prosecutors said during Mr. Popov’s trial, which ended in June.
Mr. Popov, who testified during the trial, had claimed self-defense, arguing that Mr. Sibley rushed at him after he pulled out his knife.
But a jury convicted him of manslaughter as a hate crime, which carries a maximum sentence of 25 years. The jury acquitted him of the most serious charges against him, including murder in the second degree as a hate crime.
On Thursday, Mr. Popov, now 20, stood up in a packed courtroom in Brooklyn Supreme Court and turned to where dozens of relatives and friends of Mr. Sibley were sitting.
“I never wanted to kill anybody,” he said, describing his fatal encounter with Mr. Sibley as an “unfortunate situation.” He added, “I would want everybody to know that this had nothing to do with race or with sexuality.”
“I wish I could take it back,” Mr. Popov said. “I just ask for forgiveness from the family, the friends and his loved ones.”
His lawyer, Mark Pollard, asked Justice Dena Douglas to sentence Mr. Popov as a youthful offender instead of as an adult. Under the youthful offender status, a person cannot be incarcerated for more than four years and can have their criminal record sealed.
Mr. Popov, who was ordered held without bail after his arrest in July 2023, would have only served one more year if Justice Douglas had agreed to charge him as a youthful offender.
Instead, she chose a sentence much closer to the one proposed by prosecutors, who asked for 25 years. Justice Douglas did not explain her decision, but Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, said the sentence was just and showed that Mr. Sibley’s life mattered.
“I hope that young man who took his life will spend the next 20 years thinking about what he did to the people of Brooklyn, to the people of New York City and really to the people of this country,” Mr. Gonzalez said.
Mr. Sibley’s mother, Onetha Sibley, said she had decided long ago to forgive Mr. Popov.
“I hated that child, but deep down I had to forgive. Soon as I did, I started eating. I started sleeping. I felt better,” she said. “I just hope he gets his life right.”
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