Youth Gets 6 1/2 Years for Role in Burning of Florida Tourist

TAMPA, Fla. — A white youth who cooperated with prosecutors in the case of a black New Yorker who was set on fire in Florida was sentenced Wednesday to 6 1/2 years in jail for his role in the racially motivated attack.

Jeffery Pellett, 18, was sentenced on federal carjacking charges arising from the abduction of Christopher Wilson. Pellett testified against two white laborers who were convicted last month of attempted murder.

Wilson, a New York brokerage clerk, was abducted, doused with gasoline, set on fire and left to burn to death in a field last New Year’s Day. Charles Rourk, 33, and Mark Kohut, 27, face possible life in prison when they are sentenced Friday.

Pellett identified Rourk and Kohut as the men who yelled racial insults as they set Wilson on fire.

Wilson, who is recovering from burns that covered 40% of his body, has not been able to return to work.

“No amount of money can pay me for my loss,” he wrote on his Victim’s Impact Statement, a part of the sentencing procedure that was released Tuesday. Asked on the form how much his attackers should pay in restitution, he wrote, “$10 million.”