BANGOR, Maine — An Amityville, New York, man was sentenced Wednesday at the Penobscot Judicial Center to 18 years with all but 10 suspended for the fatal stabbing of a Bangor father of two young children two years ago.
Akeem Harris, 25, also was sentenced to four years of probation and ordered to pay $3,860 in restitution to the Victims Compensation Fund.
In November, Harris pleaded guilty to manslaughter in connection with the death of Thomas N. Taylor, 30, of Bangor, who was called “Bug” by his family, on April 9, 2013. Harris, who was a student at Eastern Maine Community College at the time of the stabbing, claimed he acted in self-defense.
He wept in court Wednesday as he apologized to the victim’s family and his own.
“I made a tragic mistake that can’t be fixed,” Harris told Superior Court Justice Ann Murray.
The murder count he originally faced was dismissed at the sentencing.
“This has been a tragedy for everyone — for Akeem’s family and ours,” Taylor’s aunt Lisa Taylor Carter of Surry said at an impromptu news conference after the sentencing.
Carter said that no amount of prison time would be enough to make up for the loss of her nephew. She also said that the Harris family was losing the defendant due to his incarceration.
“The difference is that they will see Akeem again,” she told reporters. “We are never going to see Bug again.”
Ashley Conley of Ellsworth, Taylor’s fiancee and the mother of his two sons, now 7 and 2½ years old, told the judge at the sentencing hearing that her “boys will be forever traumatized” by the death of their father. She said that her older son witnessed the knife fight that killed his father.
“My hopes and dreams for the future were completely shattered,” she said. “I’ve been forced to live my life without his kind, loving personality.”
Harris’ father, Nathaniel Harris of Amityville, New York, said that his son went to the apartment complex with a female friend who was in a dispute with Taylor.
“He went there to help, not to harm,” the elder Harris said. “Someone should have called the police.”
Assistant Attorney General Leane Zainea, who prosecuted the case, recommended Harris serve 12 years in prison. Defense attorneys Richard Hartley and Zachary Brandmeier, both of Bangor, urged Superior Court Justice Ann Murray to suspend all but six years of Harris’ sentence.
Taylor died of a single stab wound to the back. He was taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center, where he died shortly after he was stabbed about 6 p.m. in the parking lot of Birch Circle apartments on Ohio Street in Bangor. Witness accounts differed about what happened, according to the affidavit. One witness told police that Harris and Taylor approached each other with knives.
One witness said “they stabbed back and forth, but neither appeared to be getting stabbed,” the affidavit stated. “She called it a ‘knife war.’ [The witness] told me that Taylor dropped his knife, and when that happened he picked up a child’s toy (trike or scooter) and held it up to protect himself. She said that Taylor threw the toy at Akeem. She added that Akeem then threw the toy at Taylor. She told us that Akeem was cut on the arm, and Akeem stabbed Taylor in the back.”
The affidavit said “knive(s) were found on the ground near the victim.”
In sentencing Harris, the judge said that the fact that he did not arrive at the apartment with a knife but retrieved a kitchen knife from his friend’s apartment influenced her sentencing decision.
“The fact that the defendant went there unarmed was a significant factor for me,” Murray said.
Harris had been held without bail since he turned himself in two days after being indicted by the Penobscot County grand jury on April 24, 2013. That time will be applied to his sentence.
Recently, he has been housed at the Penobscot County Jail and Maine State Prison in Warren, according to his attorney.
He faced up to 30 years in prison on the manslaughter charge. If convicted of murder, he would have faced between 25 years and life in prison.