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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A South Florida man who fled as jurors were deliberating on his third-degree murder case earlier this year was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Thursday.
Palm Beach County Judge Barry Cohen sentenced Niklas Prokopishen, 33, more than two months after a jury found him guilty.
The Palm Beach Post (http://goo.gl/ddGDT) reports that Prokopishen had been on house arrest and wore and ankle monitor until the time of his trial. The judge agreed to allow Prokopishen to remove the monitor after Prokopishen complained that the device's beeping would have portrayed him in an unfair light in front of jurors.
Prokopishen escaped while jurors were deliberating the case. U.S. marshals captured him a week later in New York after local and federal authorities had spent more than 350 hours trying to find him.
Prokopishen fatally shot 24-year-old Francisco Roman in January 2010 at an apartment Roman shared with his girlfriend, prosecutors said. Prokopishen went to the apartment with a gun after the girlfriend called him about an argument she had with Roman.
Defense attorneys claimed Prokopishen found the gun in the apartment and acted in self-defense.
Roman's mother, Milsa Amely, turned to Prokopishen during his sentencing and told him that in the few seconds it took for him to shoot Roman, he ruined two famillies' lives forever.
"As a Christian woman I forgive you," Amely said. "But there are consequences for such poor judgment."
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