Bus Rider’s Killer Gets 2 Life Terms

A man convicted of murder last year for shooting an MTA bus passenger in the head was sentenced Wednesday to two consecutive terms of 25 years to life.

In delivering the sentence to Byron Dwayne Cuff, Superior Court Judge Curtis B. Rappe fined Cuff $10,000 and ordered him to pay $6,600 in restitution to the widow of Paul Edward Johnson for funeral bills and related expenses.

Cuff shot Johnson in the head with a semiautomatic gun Feb. 7 after the two locked eyes and Johnson asked him what he was looking at. Cuff was convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting death of the father of four on a bus near Hollywood Boulevard.

Cuff fled but was caught after the Los Angeles City Council offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to his arrest, police said.

Cuff received the second life sentence for using a gun in the commission of the crime. “We felt it was an appropriate sentence,” said a spokeswoman for the district attorney. “He was convicted of gunning down an innocent man. . . . He deserves to be put away.”