A St. Cloud man has received a 10-year prison term for fatally shooting an 18-year-old sailor on a San Diego street after the two were kicked out of a nightclub.
Ta’Kari Terell Benness, 21, was sentenced in San Diego County Superior Court last week after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter and a gun offense in connection with the killing of 18-year-old Albert Soto of New York City on Aug. 31, 2024.
In California, sentences for violent crimes typically mean the offender will serve 85% of the term in prison along with credit for time in jail upon arrest.
At the sentencing hearing, according to NBC 7 San Diego, Benness apologized and said, “I don’t like the fact that I took another man’s life.”
The TV news report added that a letter read in court from the victim’s mother, Sarria Soto, called the 10-year sentence “a slap in the face [and] a number that allows [Benness] to start over someday, but my pain will remain for a lifetime.”
In a posting on an online fundraising page that cousin Atoria Elem initiated on behalf of the family, she wrote, “Albert was training in the Navy in California, away from his hometown. A casual night out resulted in him losing his life to gun violence.”
Gunfire about 12:50 a.m. sent police to the city’s East Village, where they found Soto with at least one gunshot wound. Emergency responders took him to a nearby hospital, where he died.
