NY Teen Gets Maximum for Hate Crime Killing

A New York teenager has been sentenced to 25 years in prison in the hate crime killing of an Ecuadorean immigrant.

Nineteen-year-old Jeffrey Conroy got the maximum sentence Wednesday. The Suffolk County Court judge said "the proof was overwhelming."

Conroy was convicted last month of first degree manslaughter as a hate crime and other crimes in the November 2008 stabbing death of Marcelo Lucero on Long Island.

Conroy was one of seven teenagers implicated in the killing but the only one to go to trial.

Long Island Teen Convicted in Hate Crime Death

At trial, prosecutors said Conroy and others allegedly went on a hunt to beat up Hispanics.

Prosecutors said Conroy delivered the fatal blow to Marcelo Lucero near the Patchogue train station.

Conroy told Newsday in the April 25 edition that he felt sorry for Lucero's family. "I wish he wasn't dead," he said.

He also has a swastika tattoo, but says he is "not a white supremacist," but that he got the tattoo on a dare.

After the sentence was imposed, Conroy's father, Robert Conroy, shouted an expletive, saying his son was only 17 at the time of the attack.

The killing shone a national spotlight on race relations on Long Island.

After Conroy was convicted, Lucero's mother, Rosario Lucero, said through a translator that she had forgiven Conroy and would pray for him.