The Associated Press
NEW YORK CITY — A firefighter who hit a colleague with a metal chair during a fight at a firehouse on New Year’s Eve in 2003 began serving a one-year jail sentence Wednesday, prosecutors said.
Michael Silvestri pleaded guilty last month to second-degree assault in connection with the attack on fellow firefighter Robert Walsh, who suffered a broken jaw, a broken nose and brain and spinal injuries.
Silvestri received his sentence Wednesday in state Supreme Court and was immediately taken into custody, prosecutors said.
Silvestri, a firefighter since 1988, apologized to Walsh and his family on Wednesday, and “to all of the firefighters that as a result of his actions had gotten in trouble,” said his lawyer, Mario Gallucci.
Silvestri blamed the Fire Department for not helping him get treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder after the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center, in which more than 300 of his colleagues died, his lawyer said.
Silvestri, who was fired by the department, had been charged with assault and criminal possession of a weapon.
He could have faced up to 25 years in prison if convicted.