A 29-year-old man entered an Alford plea on Dec. 9, denying his guilt but accepting a 30 year sentence for the fatal shooting of DeAngelo West outside a Northeast Baltimore corner store the day after Christmas last year. West was shot exactly eight weeks after his 27th birthday, and succumbed to a fatal gunshot wound three days later on Dec. 29.
“He just found out he was about to have a baby,” West’s sister told defendant Maurice Prioleau Jr. at the hearing. “You took so much from us.”
Despite disapproval from West’s family, who found the sentence too lenient, Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Lawrence R. Daniels accepted the binding plea of life, suspending all but 30 years…