NEWPORT -- The man who killed a Portsmouth motel manager was sentenced
to life without parole today, ending a 3 ½-year ordeal for the victim’s
family that began with the clerk’s son witnessing the shooting and
included three trials.
Roger Graham, 30, received Rhode Island's harshest penalty for his
first-degree murder conviction in the killing of Sanjeev Patel on New
Year's Day 2002.
In handing down the sentence today, Superior Court Judge Stephen P.
Nugent said, “Mr. Graham appears to this court to be a sociopath. He has
no conscience.”
The courtroom, crowded with more than a dozen family members and
friends, was quiet as Nugent meted out the sentence. Graham sat
motionless, showing no emotion.
Before Graham was sentenced, 11-year-old Jay Patel, who witnessed his
father’s death, read a prepared statement to the court.
In a calm, clear and strong voice, Jay said, “My dad was always there
for people who needed help. And when he was lying in front of me dying,
I was there, but still I couldn’t help him, and that pains me
constantly.”
In issuing the sentence, Nugent said, “Jay Patel should not have to
worry for one second that Roger Graham will ever see the outside of the
prison walls.”
The jury had agreed that Graham had murdered Sanjeev Patel in exchange
for money, a detail that allowed the judge to consider life without
parole.
Nugent also sentenced Graham to a consecutive life sentenced for using a
firearm during commission of violent crime and another 10 years on a
conspiracy charge.
The victim's son, Jay, was 8 years old when he saw a stranger walk into
the office of Portsmouth's Founder's Brook Motel and Suites on Jan. 1,
2002, and shoot his father to death.
Graham was convicted last February of killing Patel at the behest of
Patel's brother-in-law, Tajendra Patel, who blamed Sanveev Patel for
breaking up his marriage. Prena's sister had left Tajendra to live at
the motel with the family a couple months earlier.
It took three trials -- two of which had ended in hung juries -- before
that conviction.
Tajendra Patel was convicted earlier for plotting the crime, receiving
consecutive life sentences.
Prena Patel, Jay’s mother and the widow of Sanjeev Patel, said today,
“Finally, I have a sense of relief that this ordeal is over.”
Graham was being returned to the Adult Correctional Institutions in
Cranston, where he had been held without bail.
His lawyer, Robert Mann, said, “Obviously, we’re disappointed,” and that
they would appeal the sentence to the state Supreme Court.
-- With Associated Press reports
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