Convicted murderer George Huguely V is set to be sentenced today at the Charlottesville Circuit Court in Virginia for the beating death of his ex-girlfriend Yeardley Love.
Huguely's attorneys asked a Virginia judge today to consider reducing the former University of Virginia athete's sentence to 14 years in prison, from the 26 years recommended by a jury.
Huguely, 24, was convicted of second-degree murder on Feb. 22 for the beating death of his ex-girlfriend Yeardley Love at the University of Virginia in 2010. The jury recommended that Judge Edward Hogshire sentence Huguely to 26 years in prison.
The jury recommended 25 years in prison for the second-degree murder conviction and one year for a grand larceny conviction resulting from an allegation that Huguely stole Love's laptop computer.
Court documents filed on Wednesday by Huguely's defense team include numerous personal accounts from family and friends praising Huguely and asking for leniency
"We love Georgie deeply and we will stand by him forever," Huguely's mother Marta Murphy wrote. "Our tight knit family and close group of friends will offer him a strong and supportive network when he is released...Please have mercy and and be lenient and compassionate on my beautiful son."
Murphy also wrote about Love's death.
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Watch Video "I don't have enough words to express my deep sorrow for the loss of Yeardley's life," she said. "We got to know her and love her as any parent gets to know their child's girlfriend. She was a part of our lives."
Huguely's younger sister Teran called her brother a "smart, spiritual, generous and loving older sibling that I am happy to call my brother."
Huguely's defense attorneys wrote that sentencing guidelines for convictions of second-degree murder and grand larceny "considering Mr. Huguely's negligible criminal record" recommend a sentence of 14 to 23 years.
"Beyond the obviously tragic outcome, there are no facts in this case sufficiently aggravating to warrant a sentence above the low end of the guidelines or a sentence inconsistent with those imposed across the Commonwealth for like offenses," the defense wrote.
Huguely killed Love, 22, in a drunken rage in May 2010 just weeks before she was to graduate from the University of Virginia. Both Huguely and Love were star lacrosse players on the university's elite teams.
Huguely faced six charges, including first-degree murder, in Love's death.
Over 10 days in court, jurors listened to testimony from nearly 60 witnesses and saw a video of Huguely's police statement, graphic photos of Love's battered body, and read text and email correspondence between the two.
Though charged with first-degree murder, the judge gave jurors a menu of lesser charges they could from: second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter.
Neither the prosecution nor the defense denied that Huguely was in Love's room the night of her death and was involved in an altercation with her. They differed on the severity of the encounter and whether Huguely was directly and intentionally responsible for Love's death.
Over the course of the trial, prosecutors painted a portrait of Huguely as a violent and enraged man who savagely beat Love in her bedroom and left her there to die. Prosecutors claimed that Love died from blunt force trauma to the head.
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