WATERTOWN — After hearing from both Kyle A. Box and victim Randy Bent’s sister Kathy Thesier, Jefferson County Court Judge Kim H. Martusewicz sentenced the Carthage youth to a minimum of 15 years in prison for the 2015 stabbing death of Randy J. Bent.
Ms. Thesier thanked everyone on the prosecution’s team for “getting my family this far,” but said “it’s now (the judge’s) turn to do what’s right.”
She further described her brother, a 62-year-old Navy veteran, as “a kind and loving man, but also a very lonely one, and far too trusting.”
Ms. Thesier continued that her brother, an openly gay man, “had no evil in his heart and so he couldn’t see it in others.”
She, and District Attorney Kristyna S. Mills, recalled the graphic nature of the evidence and of Mr. Bent’s death in their appeal to the judge, asking that “the punishment should fit the crime.”
Box submitted his own plea to the judge, fighting tears to describe how while he does “feel regret and shame every day”, he maintains that the violence committed against Mr. Bent was “forced upon (me),” and he “shouldn’t have to lose my life because I was defending myself against Randy.”
Box was 18 when he stabbed Mr. Bent in an incident following Mr. Bent’s answering of Box’s gay prostitution Craigslist ad. Mr. Bent was stabbed over 40 times, and his body was burned while he was still alive.
Box said he felt there was a criminal mishandling of evidence by D.A. Mills and called for her to be charged with perjury.
He also called for a retrial, adding that, “I did something very bad but that doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. I’m a good man and I can prove it.”
The minimum penalty for second-degree murder in New York is 15 years to life; the victim’s family and prosecution asked the judge to assign Box the maximum penalty of 25 years to life.
Judge Martusewicz mandated that the sentences for the other nine counts against Box- including arson, reckless endangerment, and assault- be served concurrently with the murder sentence.
Box and his attorney, Senior Assistant Public Defender Laurel M. McCarthy, will have 30 days to appeal the sentence if they chose to do so.