If you were appalled by previous accounts of serial rapist John Hamlett and his ruthless cross-examination of one of his distraught victims during his trial, you'll be pleased to know that he was sentenced to 154 years in prison yesterday. Hamlett, whose decision to act his own lawyer during witness testimony backfired spectacularly, was convicted on all 12 counts for repeatedly breaking into the same building on East Third Street and Avenue B and sexually assaulting his victims at knife point. In giving Hamlett the maximum sentence yesterday, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley regretted that he could only incarcerate him for the rest of his life: "The sentence you deserve is beyond my ability to impose, so state prison will have to do."
Published Nov 20, 2008
Modified Nov 20, 2008
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