A man who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the 2013 death of a transgender woman will spend 12 years in prison.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. says James Dixon was sentenced Tuesday in the death of 21-year-old Islan Nettles. Prosecutors had recommended a 17-year sentence.
The victim was one of three transgender women who encountered a group of about seven young men on a Harlem street on Aug. 17, 2013.
Dixon flirted with Nettles before realizing she was transgender. Then he punched her in the face; she fell and her head hit the pavement.
He hit her some more before running away. She died five days later