Man Gets 10-Year Sentence for Killing : Crime: Robert Sherwood of Dana Point shot a man he believed was having an affair with his estranged wife. The victim’s relatives sought a harsher penalty.

A Dana Point man was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison for killing a man he suspected of having an affair with his estranged wife.

Robert Sherwood remained calm as Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin ordered him to pay a $1,000 fine and to serve a prison sentence of 10 years. The maximum possible sentence was 16 years.

Sherwood, 43, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter March 2 in the death of Randy DeVore, 41. Sherwood claimed that he discovered DeVore in bed with his wife, Marny, on March 20, 1992, on her boat docked in Dana Point Harbor. Sherwood chased DeVore, then shot him seven times, an act his attorney had argued was carried out in the “heat of passion.”

Marny Sherwood, who has denied in court that she was having an affair with DeVore, was not present at the sentencing.

Although prosecutors charged Sherwood with second-degree murder, McCartin, who tried the case without a jury, convicted Sherwood of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.

Before the sentencing, DeVore’s girlfriend, Pat Smith, and his adult daughter, Victoria DeVore, asked the judge with tears in their eyes to give Sherwood the maximum sentence.

“This has destroyed my life,” Smith said.

Sherwood was given six years for killing DeVore and another four years for a gun violation. With a credit of almost 600 days for the time he already has spent in jail, Sherwood could qualify for parole in five or six years, Deputy Dist. Atty. Patrick Donahue said.

Donahue expressed disappointment that Sherwood did not receive the maximum sentence, but, he said, “it’s the judge’s call.”

Sherwood’s defense attorney, Deputy Public Defender Robert Goss, had asked the judge to grant his client probation instead of a prison term. But McCartin told Sherwood that the killing of DeVore was too serious a crime to merit probation.

Goss did not indicate whether Sherwood would appeal the decision.

The dead man’s girlfriend and daughter complained after the court hearing that Sherwood had been given too light a term.

“The entire verdict and sentence is wrong,” Smith said. “The killing was calculated and coldblooded. Randy did not deserve to die.”

Smith said she would contact a victim’s assistance group and try to push for more stringent penalties. “I wouldn’t want anyone to go through what I went through this past year,” she said.

The year since the shooting has also been hard for Victoria DeVore, who said her 2-year-old girl, Jessica, still asks for her grandfather.

“She doesn’t understand why I’m upset all the time,” she said of her young daughter. “It’s just hard.”