Lawyers for the family of Yankel Rosenbaum filed a brief last Friday asking a federal judge to keep the chasidic scholar’s assailant in jail longer than guidelines suggest when he is sentenced Aug. 15 on a civil rights conviction.
But Lemrick Nelson Jr. is almost certain to be released within a year since a jury in May found that he was not responsible for causing Rosenbaum’s death, although he admitted attacking him during the 1991 Crown Heights riots. Nelson faces a 10-year sentence for violating Rosenbaum’s civil rights; he already has served much of that term.
On June 18, prosecutors asked Judge Frederic Block to impose "the statutory maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment."
The brief filed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn challenged the inclusion of a separate question for the jury on whether Nelson’s actions led to Rosenbaum’s death.
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