Two former Philadelphia police officers each may end up serving nearly two years behind bars for a deadly off-duty shooting that prosecutors blamed on a stolen pizza.
The Philadelphia Inquirer said Friday's 11-1/2- to 23-month prison sentences for 40-year-old Chauncey Ellison and 45-year-old Robin Fortune are double what state sentencing guidelines recommend.
Both were convicted of reckless endangerment in the 2008 death of 19-year-old Lawrence Allen.
Ellison and Fortune, who were a couple at the time, were off duty when a neighborhood teen robbed their 14-year-old sons of a pizza. The couple went searching for the thief and found him in front of 19-year-old Lawrence Allen's house. Authorities say Allen, who wasn't involved at all with the robbery, tried to diffuse the situation.
Ellison ended up shooting Allen, severing his spinal cord. He lives as a paraplegic for more than a year until he died in February 2009.
Ellison and Fortune were fired in 2010.
Both apologized to the victim's family before being sentenced.
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Former Officers Sentenced in Teen's Shooting Death
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