Fugitive Jonathan Vernier revealed the location of victim Ran Mesika's body four years after killing him.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFmesika 224.88(photo credit: Courtesy)
A prison escapee convicted in the 2003 fatal carjacking of an Israeli tourist has been sentenced to life in prison.
US District Judge Patricia Minaldi last week sentenced Jonathan Lee Vernier to life for the death of Ran Mesika.
Vernier represented himself during Friday's sentencing hearing before Minaldi, who asked him four times to reconsider doing so. The judge then denied Vernier's request for downward sentencing departure, in which the judge could impose a sentence outside the set range. Federal guidelines allow such a move when the "defendant has provided substantial assistance in the investigation."
Minaldi said that even though Vernier disclosed the location of Mesika's body last April, he could have done so in May 2004 when he was arrested.
Vernier said he withheld the information because federal prosecutors were "just threatening him with the death penalty."
Local and federal officials, as well as Mesika's family and friends, conducted about 20 land and water searches throughout Calcasieu and surrounding parishes before Vernier took them on April 14 to a site in east Jefferson Davis Parish.
There, two-thirds of Mesika's skeleton was found. Before then, Vernier would only say he dumped Mesika's body between Crowley and Iowa, Louisiana.
The men crossed paths in late April 2003, when Mesika picked up Vernier, who was hitchhiking, near Waco, Texas. Mesika had come to the United States a month earlier to visit friends after finishing his service in the IDF.
Vernier had recently escaped from a Colorado prison, where he was serving time for another carjacking. Authorities believe Vernier fatally beat Mesika with a tire iron between May 1 and May 3 at a gas station in Iowa.
FBI agents from a half dozen field offices tracked Vernier, through his use of Mesika's credit card, to a campground in Key West, Florida. He was convicted of transporting stolen goods across state lines in Florida and then was brought to Lake Charles to stand trial in Mesika's death. A jury convicted him on April 10 on a charge of carjacking resulting in death.
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