ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 31, 1996 TAG: 9601310069
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
Raymond H. Mahoney was sentenced to 30 years in prison Tuesday for setting a fire that killed a woman in her Roanoke home.
Circuit Judge Clifford Weckstein followed the recommendation of a jury that convicted Mahoney last month of murder and arson in the May 13, 1995, death of Brenda Ann Davis.
Prosecutors contended during the trial that Mahoney, 30, set fire to Davis' home on Washington Avenue in Old Southwest in retaliation for being beaten there earlier in the night during a botched drug deal.
"Fire is indiscriminate," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Gerald Teaster said in asking Weckstein not to reduce the sentence. "The destructive possibilities were enormous for the entire street."
Assistant Public Defender Michelle Derrico had argued that Mahoney, a former waiter at an upscale Roanoke restaurant and with no prior criminal record, "is not typical of the person we usually see sitting in the chair on this side of the courtroom."
Mahoney, who was convicted based solely on circumstantial evidence, testified at the trial that he was asleep with his girlfriend at the time of the fire.
Prosecution witnesses, however, testified that they heard him threaten to burn the house down shortly after he was beaten up there. Other witnesses spotted him in the area about the time the fire started.
Davis, 40, was found dead from smoke inhalation in an upstairs bedroom of the house.
Because the offenses happened after no-parole laws took effect Jan. 1, 1995, Mahoney will not be eligible for release until he serves at least 85 percent of his sentence - 25 1/2 years.
LENGTH: Short : 40 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB