By Zoe Tillman, From Legal Times

A judge on Friday sentenced the woman who fatally stabbed Washington lawyer David Messerschmitt in a hotel room to 24 years in prison.

The defendant, Jamyra Gallmon, admitted luring Messerschmitt, 30, an associate at DLA Piper, to a hotel in downtown Washington in February to rob him. She brought a knife, and after what she told police was a struggle in the hotel room, she repeatedly stabbed him and left.

District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Michael Ryan said the facts of the crime justified a sentence at the high end of the guidelines. The government had asked for a sentence of 25 years in prison; Gallmon’s lawyer asked for 18 years. Gallmon pleaded guilty to second-degree murder after accepting a plea deal that took a first-degree murder charge off the table.

“There is little the court can do to remedy the wrongs in this case, but I believe that a full explanation and transparency is important to justice,” Ryan said.

Ryan sentenced Gallmon’s accomplice in planning the robbery, Dominique Johnson, to 12 months in prison, but he suspended six months of that sentence. She will also serve three years of probation.

Messerschmitt’s family declined to speak with reporters after sentencing. During the hearing, his widow Kim Vuong spoke to the judge at the bench after a family attorney asked that she be allowed to do so. Her remarks were not public but she could be heard crying and appeared emotional throughout the hearing.

In a letter to Ryan sent before Friday’s sentencing hearing, Vuong said that were “not enough words or ways I can describe the fear, the sadness, or even the hopelessness I felt.” She said that Messerschmitt “was one of those people who people could always count on to be there for everything important.”

Messerschmitt’s older brother, Patrick Messerschmitt, made a public statement before the court on behalf of the family on Friday.

“Many hearts are still aching today,” he said. “The world is now down one really great person.”

In letters to Ryan filed with the court this week, many of Messerschmitt’s friends and family asked Ryan to sentence Gallmon to 25 years in prison, the highest sentence possible under the range that both sides agreed to in a plea deal. Colleagues described a rising star in the legal community, and loved ones wrote about their grief at the crime.

Ryan also heard from members of Gallmon and Johnson’s family during the hearing. Gallmon’s mother, Sabrina Butler, apologized to Messerschmitt’s family and repeatedly said she did not understand what her daughter had done.

In asking for a lower sentence, Gallmon’s attorney, Matthew Davies of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, said Gallmon was “overwhelmingly remorseful” and that the crime was an aberration. He also noted that past trauma that Gallmon suffered played a part in the violent encounter with Messerschmitt.

In announcing the sentence, Ryan said he appreciated Davies’ argument about Gallmon’s history, but that she “put herself in that hotel room.”

In a statement, Acting U.S. Attorney Vincent Cohen Jr. said that the “sentences handed down today hold [Gallmon and Johnson] accountable for their callous crimes and hopefully will warn others who are even considering such senseless violence.”

IMAGE: Jamyra Gallmon, seen here in a hotel surveillance video the authorities provided to the media. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/NLJ

For more on this story go to: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/legaltimes/id=1202735344448/DC-Lawyers-Killer-Gets-24-Years-in-Prison-#ixzz3jjwPpCIS

See also iNews Cayman related story and links published May 31 2015 “Woman charged in murder of D.C. Lawyer pleads guilty” at: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/woman-charged-in-murder-of-d-c-lawyer-pleads-guilty/