Re: Bodega worker who set (black) homeless man on fire found unfit for trial
https://nypost.com/2018/07/18/deranged-bodega-worker-who-set-homeless-man-on-fire-walks-free/
‘
Deranged’ bodega worker who set homeless man on fire walks free
By Emily Saul
July 18, 2018 | 2:55pm | Updated
The monster who set a sleeping, mentally ill homeless man on fire — and had an employee videotape the sadism — will walk free later Wednesday after a judge was forced to sentence him to time served.
“Please tell me who is going to exercise justice here,” the victim’s mother, Priscilla Hand, implored Brooklyn Judge Jane Tully at
Suliman Ahmed’s sentencing. “That satanic and evil excuse of a human being set my son ablaze.”
Tasheen Hand after the attack.Tasheen Hand after the attack
Gregory P. Mango
Video taken by Ahmed’s late co-defendant,
Lorenzo Fonerin, shows the fiend dousing a dozing
Tasheen Hand with lighter fluid and then kicking a flaming pack of matches onto his back. The victim was engulfed in flames for a full minute before Fonerin tossed water on him. He suffered burns on over 30 percent of his body.
Ahmed and Fonerin had been working a shift at an East New York bodega when they targeted the sleeping man just after midnight in September 2012.
Incredibly, a Brooklyn jury in May convicted Ahmed — who orchestrated the immolation — of only misdemeanor counts of assault, reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon.
Under the law, Tully was forced to sentence Ahmed to a year on each charge — the top sentence possible for a misdemeanor — which were credited to the six years Ahmed spent behind bars pending trial and undergoing psych evaluations.
Fonerin was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2015. Yet, in a fateful twist, his conviction was overturned on appeal and he was released — only to die in a motorcycle accident in June, a mere three months after his release.
Calling Ahmed a “deranged animal,” Hand’s mom also blasted the jury for their decision to acquit the man of the more serious charges.
“People who have abused animals have gotten more time than this man will,” the enraged mother spat. “I believe the jury did not understand the case. We cannot trust a jury to bring back a fair verdict.”
Then the mother turned to Ahmed, who cowered behind his defense attorney, avoiding eye contact.
“Ahmed has disfigured my son. When he leaves here, he can go to beach. But my son cannot go out,” she said of her 41-year-old son, who is now living with PTSD in addition to mental illness. “[Ahmed] is free, while my son is in prison in his head.”
When asked if he wanted to speak, the vile firebug shook his head, saying, “No, your honor.”
Even the prosecutor and judge questioned the jury’s confusing decision to acquit Ahmed of the more serious charges.
“We respect the jury’s verdict, but we do not agree with it,” prosecutor Rene Plattner said. “This man was one of the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society, and was treated as a toy and a plaything by this defendant, who used him for his own sick enjoyment.”
Tully sighed before saying she was forced to hand down a lenient sentence based on the jury’s verdict.
“These are misdemeanor charges, but I do not feel this is a misdemeanor case,” she said. “The actions you took were nothing less than heinous, it is beyond the court how you could have done such a thing. The fact that you wanted to film these heinous, horrible acts is unfathomable. That you wanted to record yourself is nothing short of despicable.”
Ahmed remained silent as he was cuffed and led back into the pens. His release is expected later Wednesday.
