This is a perplexing case for the court. The outcome is unclear and so is the concept of justice.
By Bruce Alpert
New Orleans Times-Picayune
WASHINGTON — The family of the social scientist who died after being attacked with a burning pitcher of gasoline in Afghanistan is asking a federal judge to be lenient with the New Orleans security contractor who apprehended and later shot and killed her attacker.
Sentencing the man to prison “would be putting our family through even more anguish,” said Paul Loyd, the brother of Paula Loyd, 36, who died in a San Antonio hospital two months after the attack that burned 60 percent of her body.
Don Ayala, 46, who has lived in New Orleans for the past five or six years, worked as a private security contractor assigned to protect Loyd and other members of her team, pleaded guilty last week to voluntary manslaughter. He faces up to 15 years in prison, although prosecutors are recommending a significantly lower sentence when he faces federal Judge Claude M. Hilton on May 8 in Alexandria, Va.
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