Killer of FAU student to serve 48 years
The man who shot a Florida Atlantic University student to death during an off-campus robbery in late 2015 pleaded guilty and was sentenced Wednesday to 48 years in prison.
Alexander Gillis, 24, of Miami Gardens, said he went along with the plan by his accomplices to steal marijuana from Nicholas Acosta, but never intended to kill him.
“I wasn’t interested in the weed or the money,” Gillis said, crying while making a statement to Circuit Judge Jeffrey Colbath. “It wasn’t my idea.”
Gillis, who fired three shots and hit the 19-year-old victim twice in a Boca Raton apartment, also apologized to Acosta’s parents and other loved ones in the courtroom.
“I don’t know how to say I’m sorry but I truly am,” he said, before Colbath pronounced the sentence for second-degree murder, burglary and robbery charges.
Previously charged with first-degree murder with a firearm — which carries an automatic life sentence for a conviction — Gillis wanted to spare the Acostas the pain of a trial, Assistant State Attorney Reid Scott said.
The prosecutor recommended a 60-year sentence, with at least 40 years to be served with no credit for good behavior. He said it was not a premeditated killing, and Gillis accepted responsibility for his role in the crime.
“I don’t understand my actions,” Gillis said, explaining there was a sudden struggle and he just reacted. “I didn’t even give him a chance.”
Zena Duncan, the attorney for Gillis, said her client and his four accomplices were all “young and dumb” and simply wanted the quarter-pound of marijuana Acosta was selling when they went to the University Park Apartments complex after 7 p.m. on Dec. 29, 2015.
“No one thought about violence,” she said, requesting a sentence in line with the 35-year punishment now being served by the convicted mastermind of the robbery, Donovan Henry.
Henry, 20, a former FAU freshman soccer player from Miramar, was convicted at a trial last year. He testified he was forced to set up the drug deal and go along with it, but that contradicted what Gillis and the others said.
Colbath said because Gillis brought the weapon to the robbery, he “bears the brunt of the responsibility” for the killing.
The punishment comes with a requirement for Gillis to serve a mandatory minimum of 25 years. Counting credit for having already spent more than a year and a half in jail, plus gain time while serving the sentence, Gillis should be set free before his 70th birthday.
The judge called the killing “a nightmare for everybody. It’s a horrible case.” Acosta “was selling marijuana but he didn’t deserve that,” Colbath said.
Maximino Acosta, the victim’s father, requested a life sentence for having the youngest of his three children taken from him.
“This has been a bad dream,” he said. “I go to sleep every night thinking about him. I’m never going to see my son again.”
Acosta said his son, in his second year at the university, was “a good kid” who his studies.
“The most important thing to him was to go to college,” he said.
Andrew Gillis, an uncle, told the court he was “so sorry” for Nicholas Acosta’s death, but said his nephew “is not a monster.”
Gillis told Colbath his nephew was born with AIDS and cured as a toddler, but both his parents are dead.
Aside from Gillis and Henry, two other co-defendants previously pleaded guilty to the same charges and await sentencing. They are Adonis Gillis, a 24-year-old cousin, and Rodrick Demetrius Woods, 25.
The fifth individual identified or arrested.
Boca Raton Police Detective Scott Hanley testified Wednesday that the perpetrators took two cars back to Miami Gardens after the shooting. was dedicated was to never