Key Torching Case Witness Gets Prison Term
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TAMPA, Fla. — A white suspect who became a prosecution witness in the torching of a black tourist will serve no more than 6 1/2 years in prison, and he said Friday that he had little sympathy for two friends he helped put away for life.
“I saw what they done,” 18-year-old Jeffery Pellett said after his sentencing. “They done it and now they’re going to do the time for it.”
Prosecutors said Pellett’s cooperation under a plea bargain helped convict fellow white laborers Mark Kohut, 27, and Charles Rourk, 33, in the attack on Christopher Wilson, a stock brokerage clerk on vacation from New York.
Kohut and Rourk were sentenced to life in prison for attempted murder, kidnaping and robbery.
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