Nancy Kerrigan broke down and cried earlier as she asked the judge to send her brother home instead of to jail.
View full sizeMark Kerrigan stands in court before the jury left for deliberations at Middlesex Superior Court in Woburn, Wednesday. The jury acquitted Mark Kerrigan of manslaughter but guilty of assault and battery in the death of his father Daniel Kerrigan. Daniel Kerrigan died of a heart attack after the two had a fight at their family home. WOBURN – A Massachusetts judge sentenced the brother of Olympic figure skater Nancy Kerrigan to the maximum two and a half years in jail on Thursday after he was convicted of assault in the death of their 70-year-old father.
Six months of the sentence for Mark Kerrigan will be suspended, and he will be required to get anger management and alcohol treatment, and serve two years of probation.
Nancy Kerrigan broke down and cried earlier as she asked Judge S. Jane Haggerty to send Mark Kerrigan home instead of sending him to jail.
Mark Kerrigan was convicted of assault, but acquitted of manslaughter, Wednesday in his father’s 2010 death.
Prosecutors alleged that Mark Kerrigan caused his father’s death during a physical altercation at the family’s home in Stoneham, just north of Boston. They said Mark Kerrigan put his hands around Daniel Kerrigan’s neck with such force that he broke cartilage in his father’s larynx and triggered his heart failure.
The defense argued that Daniel Kerrigan died because he had severely blocked coronary arteries and that Mark Kerrigan was not responsible.
View full sizeFormer Olympic figure skater Nancy Kerrigan arrives at Middlesex Superior Court, in Woburn Thursday morning.Nancy Kerrigan told the judge that the large Kerrigan family supported her brother. She called his prosecution in the death of their father “a long and trying experience.”
“Any sentence for Mark would only serve to extend an unnecessary situation that already seems as if it has been never-ending,” she said.
“We ask that you please ... send him home with us today so that he can rejoin our family,” she said, breaking down in tears.
Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Keeley asked the judge to sentence Kerrigan to the maximum 2 ½ years, citing his lengthy criminal record and alcohol problem.
Defense attorney Janice Bassil asked for a 6-month suspended sentence followed by a year of probation.
The judge called a recess before pronouncing the sentence, after listening to the emotional statements from Nancy Kerrigan and her aunt, Joanne Tarason, who spoke on behalf of Nancy and Mark’s mother, Brenda Kerrigan.
Brenda Kerrigan’s statement said, “Mark and I have suffered enough.” She said Mark has helped her “in every way possible” since his father’s death. Brenda Kerrigan is legally blind.