A judge ordered a 49-year-old man to serve two consecutive life sentences in prison for killing his girlfriend and her friend in January 2023.
In addition to the sentence, Richard Sotka He must also pay more than $16,000 in restitution, WITI-TV reported.
Sotka was found guilty in March of two counts of first-degree intentional homicide with use of a dangerous weapon, criminal damage to property and multiple counts of bail jumping in the deaths of Rhonda Cegelski and Paula O’Connor.
On January 29, 2023, Green Bay police responded to Cegelski’s home and found the two women stabbed to death. Sotka fled Wisconsin, but was arrested the same day in Arkansas.
According to the affidavit cited by WFRV-TV, Sotka and Cegelski were in a relationship and on the day of the murders, he reportedly encountered Cegelski and O’Connor in an intimate moment, so He burst into a fit of jealousy when he felt humiliated..
The defendant violently stabbed both women, causing “very large” cuts. One of the victims reportedly still had the knife to her neck when police arrived.
He claims he acted in self-defense.
Sotka, who told police he was “humiliated” and “snapped,” will appeal his conviction because he maintains he killed Cegelski and O’Connor in self-defense.
Given the opportunity to speak in his defense, The accused maintained that the two women attacked himand said that, although people want him to “show regret,” he said: “I don’t feel anything.”
“I have heard people call me a lunatic and crazy animal and yet they are surprised when I act out of fear and confusion in a complicated situation… I didn’t choose the fight, I finished it “Sotka said, according to a report by WFRV, a CBS affiliate in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Brown County Circuit Court Judge Beau Liegeois told the defendant before handing down the sentence: “She was a daughter, a sister, a friend, a mother and even a grandmother, who you basically wiped off the face of the earth because you felt a little insulted.”
Keep reading:
– Iowa woman who killed her stepmother and confessed to the crime on Snapchat is found guilty.
– A Chicago woman planned the crime of her Hispanic boyfriend to start a relationship with her accomplice.