From Kim Minugh
A 19-year-old man was sentenced today to life in prison without possibility of parole for killing a man in a 2008 gang-motivated drive-by shooting in Del Paso Heights.
Doshmen Jamaal Johnson, who continues to maintain his innocence, first will serve 10 years for carrying out the shooting that killed 27-year-old Perry Steele on behalf of the North Highlands-based "TNA" gang.
He then will serve a life sentence without possibility of parole for the first-degree murder, plus 25 years for using a gun.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Steve White handed down the sentence this afternoon, calling Johnson's actions "cold blooded."
Other than the glorification of his gang, White said, "there appears to be no other purpose to the killing."
Steele, a member of the rival Del Paso Heights Bloods, died in May 2008, one month after being shot in his car while at a stoplight at the intersection of Del Paso and Marysville boulevards.
His sister, Bakita Adame, said her baby brother suffered a "slow and extremely painful death," losing all his limbs before finally succumbing to his injuries.
"It was a senseless act - cruel, ugly and ungodly," she told Judge White before he sentenced Johnson.
Velecea Diggs, Johnson's mother, said after the hearing that she will continue her fight to prove her son's innocence.
"They think it's over, but it's not," she said. "I'm going to make sure."
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