Richard Diaz, the young man who pleaded guilty to fatally shooting a Woodbury convenience store clerk in order to eliminate him as a robbery witness, was sentenced on Tuesday, December 7, to 25 years to life in prison by Judge Victor Ort.

On December 29, 1997, Diaz shot 23-year-old Kamlesh Patel twice - once in the head, once in the chest - after he and his accomplice, Syosset resident Justin Scherr, robbed the 24-Hour Convenience Store on Woodbury Road. The two fled with approximately $600 in cash and a roll of Lotto tickets.

At the sentence hearing, District Attorney Joy Watson argued for the most severe punishment the judge could order - life without the possibility of parole. She said that the cold-blooded, execution-like manner in which Patel was shot merited such a penalty.

"We asked for life without parole because we thought the vicious nature of the crime warranted such a sentence; the judge obviously thought otherwise," remarked Watson in an interview.

Before his sentencing, Diaz expressed sorrow to his family and toward the victim. The 20-year-old Woodbury resident entered his guilty plea September 2, admitting to Murder in the First and Second Degree, Robbery, Criminal Possession of a Weapon and Arson.

Scherr, 20, who pleaded guilty on September 29 to first-degree manslaughter for his role in the murder, was sentenced to 7 1/2 to 25 years at a hearing held November 30.

The two men were arrested separately on January 29, 1998. Diaz's reckless, irrational behavior both before and after the murder had led police to suspect him, and through Diaz, investigators were able to identify Scherr as the accomplice.

Diaz was exposed as the killer because of his involvement in another shooting which took place a week prior to the murder. Edward Lulu, the manager of a Syosset restaurant, was the purported "victim" of this other shooting; however, the entire incident was actually a bizarre set-up.

Lulu asked Diaz, his friend and co-worker, to shoot him in the arm in a twisted plot to throw off the police, who were investigating him for harassing a female restaurant employee. The police later matched the bullet extracted from Lulu's arm with the ones that entered Patel's body.

Also, in an earlier attempt to gain the sympathy of the female employee, Lulu asked Diaz to set the woman's car on fire so that he could play hero and console her when she saw what happened. This is why arson was among the charges later filed against Diaz.

A second break in the murder case occurred when Diaz cashed in the winning lottery tickets that he stole from the convenience store.

After obtaining a search warrant, the police entered Diaz's home and found the murder weapon underneath his bed. Later, Diaz confessed both in a written statement and on videotape.

Facing the prosecution's irrefutable evidence and his own two confessions, Diaz had little choice but to plead guilty, said Watson. According to the ADA, if Diaz had risked trial, "the likelihood was that he would be convicted of all counts and he would risk not being eligible at all for parole."

"Life is a bit more optimistic when you consider liberty in your 40s than never," Watson added.

Diaz, represented by attorney Stephen Scaring of Garden City, may appeal the sentence.