Husband to spend life in prison for killing man he found with his wife
WEST PALM BEACH — Jurors cried once they convicted 40-year-old Robert Finney III of manslaughter, and the mom of his sufferer did, too. She howled within the courtroom: It was homicide.
Bailiffs strong-armed Robert Anthony’s household out whereas they hurled insults at his killer. Over the clamor, one man’s voice stood out.
“He’ll nonetheless get life in jail,” he mentioned.
He was proper. Months after jurors rejected prosecutors’ concept {that a} jealous Finney stalked his spouse to homicide her and the 20-year-old man he discovered her alone with, Circuit Choose Jeffrey Gillen sentenced him to the utmost penalty anyway: life in jail for aggravated battery, 15 years for manslaughter and 15 extra for capturing into an occupied car.
For Subscribers: A jury convicted Robert Finney III in a 2018 deadly capturing. The sufferer’s household needed extra.
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Gillen’s choice Thursday got here after an hour of testimony from each households, one begging for mercy, and the opposite for as harsh a punishment because the state allowed.
“I need him to pay for what he did,” mentioned Anthony’s mom, Valerie Thornton-Anthony. “For what he took.”
Sufferer’s household requested decide to impose a life sentence
Finney shot Anthony, a Royal Palm Seaside Excessive College graduate, after he discovered him in his automobile with Finney’s then-wife, Roqueria Mills, on March 10, 2018, within the parking zone of Village Place Flats, a gated complicated alongside Village Boulevard in West Palm Seaside.
Finney shot 20-year-old Mills, too, paralyzing her for all times. Attorneys supplied vastly completely different narratives over the course of the trial to elucidate what led to the capturing.
In a single, Finney was a doting, devoted husband, taken benefit of by his partner and frightened into capturing her and her companion when he opened his automobile door to discover a stranger inside. Within the different, he was a jealous and insecure associate who stalked his spouse and executed the person he discovered her with, fabricating the story of self-defense years later to cowl his tracks.
On the finish of every model was the loss of life of Anthony, who had met Mills only one evening earlier whereas celebrating his 20th birthday. He was 6-foot-5 and a jokester, his mom mentioned. He cherished to play basketball and was all the time first to the desk for Sunday dinners along with his household.
He might have walked away along with his life, she mentioned, had Finney chosen to talk as a substitute of shoot. Anthony’s face beamed up on the decide from the custom-made jersey his mom wore Thursday, his identify printed throughout her shoulders.
Jury did not imagine Robert Finney deliberately killed Robert Anthony
Finney’s household introduced the decide with their very own photographs chronicling Finney’s life. It was an upstanding one, they mentioned. He grew up in Belle Glade and received the state soccer championship as a member of the Glades Central Excessive College’s soccer staff. He pursued undergraduate and graduate levels in prison justice, had no prior prison historical past and was concerned in a church the place his father is a deacon.
Assistant Public Defender Stephen Arbuzow spoke final in Finney’s protection. The jury hadn’t convicted Finney a assassin, he mentioned, and he should not be punished like one, both.
The lightest permissible sentence Gillen might supply was about 16 years in jail, in keeping with Florida’s prison punishment rating sheet. Arbuzow advisable 25 years to account for a state statute that enhances penalties for crimes dedicated with a gun, which Finney was licensed to hold on the time of the capturing.
Mills, Anthony’s household and the prosecutor needed extra. Assistant State Legal professional Francine Edwards advisable Gillen sentence Finney to life in jail, along with two 15-year sentences to be served consecutively.
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Gillen listened to every argument, nodding to himself often.
Mills, now 25, testified over Zoom from a hospital mattress, the place she mentioned she’s undergone greater than 25 surgical procedures for the reason that capturing. She’s out and in of there continuously, battling infections she mentioned will someday kill her. Her son cannot sit on her lap anymore with out inflicting her ache.
“Whereas he could also be incarcerated, he won’t ever expertise the kind of ache and trauma which we’ve,” Mills mentioned. Finney’s aunt listened from the gallery, her lips pressed collectively tightly.
Finney robbed Anthony of his life and condemned hers to the confines of a wheelchair, Mills mentioned — he deserved to spend the remainder of his in jail for it. Gillen agreed. He handed the sentence precisely as Edwards requested him to.
The response within the courtroom was quieter this time than when he introduced the decision in November. Finney’s household sat immobile, and Anthony’s did, too. His mom started to cry. It wasn’t the decision they needed, the household mentioned within the hallway after, nevertheless it was the ending they wanted.
Hannah Phillips is a journalist protecting public security and prison justice at The Palm Seaside Publish. You may attain her at hphillips@pbpost.com.
This text initially appeared on Palm Seaside Publish: Husband who killed man, paralyzed spouse sentenced to life in jail
