Killer Receives Maximum Sentence : Crime: The drifter gets 25 years to life for the stabbing death of a Simi Valley executive whose wife was initially charged but later cleared.

A 20-year-old drifter was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison Tuesday for the stabbing death of a Sun Valley executive whose wife was initially charged with the crime but later cleared.

Thomas Anthony Moore pleaded guilty to first-degree murder last month and was given the maximum sentence by San Fernando Superior Court Judge Meredith Taylor, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth Barshop.

Police said Moore killed Gregory E. Sophiea, 38, who was found stabbed to death in his home Jan. 31, 1990.

After physical evidence, including bloody fingerprints, linked him to the crime, Moore confessed to killing Sophiea in a panic after breaking into his house to steal a VCR and other items, police said. During questioning by detectives, Moore implicated Sophiea’s wife, Mary Kellel-Sophiea, who was arrested and charged with murder. Kellel-Sophiea and her husband had separated shortly before his death.

Detectives argued that Kellel-Sophiea enlisted Moore to help her kill her husband and staged a burglary to cover up the crime.

But last year, prosecutors dropped the charges against Kellel-Sophiea, citing a lack of evidence. The woman later filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Los Angeles Police Department Detectives Woodrow Parks and Gary Milligan, charging that they tried to frame her for the slaying by coercing Moore to falsely implicate her and by fabricating other evidence against her. The lawsuit is scheduled for trial in August.

In court documents and before the judge, Sophiea’s sister, Anita Pollock, asked that the maximum sentence be imposed.

Kellel-Sophiea also appeared before the judge Tuesday, expressing the effect of her husband’s death on their young daughter.