New York Man Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison in Transgender Death Case

An upstate New York man has been sentenced to the maximum 25 years in prison for the hate crime killing of a transgender woman.

Dwight DeLee was found guilty of manslaughter last month for shooting Lateisha Green because of anti-gay bias. The 20-year-old construction laborer is just the second person in the nation convicted of a hate crime for killing a transgender victim. He was sentenced Tuesday in Syracuse by Judge William Walsh.

The 22-year-old Green was born male, but lived mostly as a female after age 16. She was killed outside a house party in November.

DeLee was acquitted of murder. The manslaughter conviction means he intended to injure, not kill, someone when he fired into a car where Green was sitting with her brother and a friend.