Florida Man Who Killed Prankster Gets 1 Year

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.- A man who shot a teenage prankster to death pleaded guilty Friday to manslaughter and apologized to the boy's parents. Jay Levin, 41, was sentenced to one year in jail, to be served on weekends only, and 10 years of probation. He was also ordered to leave the suburban Boca Raton neighborhood where he and the victim, Mark Drewes, lived. Drewes, 16, and a friend were knocking on neighbors' doors and running away late at night when Levin said he mistook the 6-foot-2 teen for a burglar and "thought he saw something in Drewes' hand," according to sheriff's reports from the October 2003 shooting. Levin, an accountant, answered the knock on his door armed with a handgun and shot the teen in the back, deputies said. He then called 911 and told a dispatcher he had just shot "an intruder." At the hearing, Levin apologized to Drewes' parents, saying he thought about their son every day and that the shooting was a "mistake." Luciana Drewes said she wished the apology had come sooner. "You murdered my son. You murdered me," she told Levin.

(AP article here)