May 5 (UPI) — A Kansas judge sentenced a man who killed an Indian engineer and wounded two others in a possible hate crime last year to life in prison.
On Friday, Kansas District Court Judge James Charles Droege sentenced Adam Purinton, 52, to a prison term that gives him parole eligibility after nearly 78 years.
The sentence was based on a premeditated murder charge for fatally shooting Srinivas Kuchibhotla and two other counts of attempted murder in shooting Alok Madasani, also an Indian national, and Ian Grillot, a bystander who attempted to intervene at Austin’s Bar and Grill in Olathe, Kan., last year.
Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe said after sentencing in a Kansas City Star report that the goal was “to make sure that he never walks in the community again, that he spends the rest of his life in the penitentiary, and I believe this sentence will achieve that result.”
The life sentence was part of a plea agreement.
Purinton pleaded guilty in March to the state charges against him.
Federal hate crime charges are also pending against Purinton. Witnesses say he uttered racial slurs at the Indian men and told them “get out of my country,” before shooting them.
Purinton is expected to enter a plea in the federal hate crime case on May 21.
Sunayana Dumala, Kuchibhotla’s widow, addressed Purinton’s potentially racist motivations in a victim impact statement she submitted to the court Friday.
“I wish you had the ability to see beyond my husband’s skin color and the beautiful and kind-hearted person underneath it,” Dumala’s statement read.
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