A person who fatally shot an 18-year-old Navy sailor in East Village was sentenced Monday to 10 years in state jail.
Ta’Kari Terell Benness, 21, pleaded responsible to voluntary manslaughter and a gun allegation for the Aug. 31, 2024, killing of Albert Lee Soto, an operations specialist seaman apprentice who was assigned to the San Diego-based destroyer USS Pinckney. Soto, a local of Queens, New York, had reported to San Diego for army service in April of 2024, six months after enlisting, in response to the Navy.
At Benness’ arraignment, a prosecutor stated the capturing stemmed from a struggle between two teams of individuals at a neighborhood nightclub, which spilled into an argument outdoors.
Deputy District Legal professional Matthew Carberry stated Benness and/or members of his group stated one thing to the impact of, “I’ll air this (expletive) out. I’ve obtained my gun within the automotive.”
The prosecutor stated Soto left, however later returned, “demanding a one-on-one struggle in retribution for the struggle that occurred within the membership.”
Benness then pulled out a gun and shot the sufferer, in response to the prosecutor.
Soto was taken to a hospital, the place he was pronounced lifeless.
Carberry stated Benness then fled California on a Greyhound bus. He was arrested almost two months later in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
At his sentencing listening to, Benness apologized and stated, “I don’t like the truth that I took one other man’s life.”
Nevertheless, he additionally claimed Soto adopted him and “put me in a bizarre place,” drawing anger from a number of of Soto’s relations who attended courtroom or seen the listening to remotely.
A few of Soto’s family members alleged Benness bragged concerning the killing on social media.
A letter learn in courtroom from the sufferer’s mom, Sarria Soto, known as the 10-year sentence “a slap within the face” and “a quantity that enables (Benness) to begin over sometime, however my ache will stay for a lifetime.”
Her letter, directed towards Benness, additionally learn, “I don’t need sympathy. I would like you to really feel the load of what you probably did. You took one thing you’ll be able to by no means give again.”
