2 Florida Men Who Set Black Tourist on Fire Get Life Terms

Two white men who doused a black tourist with gasoline and set him on fire as they taunted him with racial epithets received the maximum sentence Friday of life in prison.

Circuit Judge Donald C. Evans, who called the attack among the “most senseless and atrocious crimes” he had ever seen, also ordered that the sentences for attempted murder be followed by 40 years for Charles Rourk and 27 years for Mark Kohut for kidnaping and robbery.

Kohut, 27, and Rourk, 33, were convicted last month in the New Year’s Day attack on Christopher Wilson, a 32-year-old stock brokerage clerk from New York City.

“Thank God, it’s over,” Wilson said Friday. “Justice was done.”

Attorneys for both defendants said they would appeal the sentences.

Wilson had asked that the two day laborers from Lakeland get the maximum sentence.

“I would like them to get counseling in prison,” Wilson wrote in court papers filed this week. “I hope that they will learn never to hurt someone because of their color.”

Wilson was abducted outside a suburban Tampa shopping plaza and forced to drive to a remote field where he was set on fire. He suffered burns over nearly 40% of his body.

Wilson, who was in court for the sentencing, wrote that he suffers constant pain, is unable to work and can’t go out in the sun. He estimated his medical bills at $250,000, and has requested $10 million in restitution.

A third suspect originally charged in the case, 18-year-old Jeffery Pellett of Plant City, testified against his friends. He was sentenced in federal court Wednesday to 6 1/2 years for aiding in an armed carjacking. Pellett awaits sentencing on his plea to a state charge of accessory after the fact. He was to receive no more than 22 months on that charge.