Nov. 10, 2008 — The man recently found guilty of gunning down St. Thomas architect Carlos Aguilar in October 2007 was sentenced Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus 15 years for first-degree murder and related weapons charges.
Akeel T. Codrington, 20, was also sentenced to pay $3,850 in restitution, along with a $25,000 fine. Codrington was also sentenced to five years — which will run concurrently with the life-plus-15-year sentence — for possession of stolen property.
The first-degree murder charge, according to local law, carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole.
The shooting occurred in October 2007 after Aguilar and his wife responded to an alarm at their Smith Bay home, which had just been burglarized. Aguilar saw a red Mitsubishi auto leaving the area and gave chase, colliding with it on Smith Bay Road. Eyewitnesses to the incident — many of whom testified during Codrington's trial in September — said they saw Codrington exit from the driver's side of the red car, gun in hand, and fire two shots into Aguilar's vehicle.
Aguilar died 10 days later.
Codrington has consistently denied killing Aguilar. In a statement given to police the day after the incident, Codrington said that he was the driver of the red car, and had stopped along Smith Bay Road to pick up a passenger who had offered him $30 for a ride to Red Hook. The passenger — who Codrington said was wearing all black — stowed a black garbage bag containing a 20-inch television and other items in the trunk of the car. After the car accident, Codrington said he saw the passenger get out of the vehicle, heard two shots fired and ran off in the opposite direction. (See "Aguilar Shooting Defendant Guilty of First-Degree Murder.")
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