A Long Island man will serve 18 years in prison after admitting he strangled and repeatedly beat an 18-year-old woman he met near a Nassau County park until she died.
Maxwell Sherman, of Long Beach, was sentenced Thursday after pleading guilty in April to a top charge of second-degree murder in the August 2013 death of Lauren Daverin-Gresham.
The young woman's partially clothed body was found on a footbridge, a popular gathering place for teenagers near a Rockville Centre Park. Prosecutors said Daverin-Gresham, of Lynbrook, had gone there to meet friends and encountered Sherman, who had recently returned to Long Island to stay at his parents house in Long Beach, there. They had never met before that night.
Sherman, 19, apologized to the victim's family at Thursday's sentencing hearing, reading a statement that said, in part, "I offer no excuses. I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart."
Daverin-Gresham's family said they doubted Sherman's confession was sincere. Her uncle, Luke McLaughlin, called Sherman "an animal who deserves to spend the rest of his life in a cage," and said the less-than-two-decade sentence was "a slap on the wrist."
Sherman's plea came as part of an agreement with prosecutors, who said the victim's family signed off on the resolution of the case. He could have been sentenced to 32 years to life if convicted at trial.
“Because of the cold-blooded brutality of this crime, it is just that Maxwell Sherman pay a heavy price for tragically and inexplicably cutting Lauren Daverin’s life short,” Acting Nassau District Attorney Madeline Singas said in a statement. "It is my fervent hope that today’s sentence gives Lauren’s loved ones a small amount of closure and peace."Attorney William Petrillo has said Sherman pleaded guilty to spare both his family and the victim's family from a long drawn-out trial.
