Lives could have been saved if the only man Dylann Roof confided in about his plan to massacre black church goers had told someone. He will now have a long time to ponder that as that friend has been sentenced to 27 months in prison.

About a week before Roof’s June 17, 2015, Charleston Massacre, Joey Meek and Dylann Roof, a childhood friend, spent a night playing video games, taking cocaine and marijuana and drinking. Roof told Joey of his sheer hatred for blacks and plans to massacre churchgoers. Meek maintains he thought Roof was all talk.

Hi sentencing was for failing to report a crime and lying to the FBI.

In court on Tuesday he cried and told the judge “I’m really, really sorry. A lot of beautiful lives were taken,”

The Grio reported:

Meek signed a deal with prosecutors in 2016, agreeing to plead guilty to lying to authorities and failure to report a crime. Federal prosecutors said he had lied to the FBI by first denying Roof shared his plan. Authorities said he also had stopped a friend from calling police after hearing about the shooting to report Roof as a suspect.

Gergel previously ruled that Meek could only be sentenced for what he did after the slayings, not for any inaction beforehand. Meek’s “failure to make an earlier report is tragic and deeply regrettable, but his failure to report was not a violation of federal criminal law,” the judge had written earlier.

Meek also had agreed to help prosecutors as part of his 2016 deal. But they never called him during Roof’s trial, in which Roof acted as his own lawyer for much of the proceedings and put up almost no defense.

Then just before Meek was initially set to be sentenced last month, prosecutors asked for a stiffer sentence than guidelines recommended, seeking to make an example of him and reflect the seriousness of the crime that Meek could have stopped if he’d picked up the phone.

source.

Do you think he deserved 27 months for this?