Times Union
ALBANY, N.Y. — Jennica Duell was sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison Monday for lying to a federal grand jury about the fire that killed her ex-boyfriend and three of her children.
Senior U.S. District Court Judge Gary Sharpe ordered Duell to serve 11 years and three months.
During her sentencing, Duell told the judge that the man originally charged with setting the deadly fire — Robert Butler — was innocent.
Duell, whose daughter, Sa’fyre Terry, was severely burned in the May 2, 2013, blaze at 438 Hulett St. in Hamilton Hill, faced a maximum 15-year prison sentence at her sentencing Monday morning.
The inferno killed David Terry, 32; Layah Terry, 3; Michael Terry, 2; and 11-month-old Donavan Duell. Sa’fyre, now 9, suffered burns to 75 percent of her body. The story of the child story attracted national headlines as thousands of people — including President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama — sent Sa’fyre cards. A fundraising effort raised more than $400,000.
Duell’s initial grand jury testimony May 24, 2013, led investigators to charge her ex-boyfriend, Butler, with federal arson, a death penalty-eligible offense. On Jan. 31, 2014, Duell again testified before the grand jury. This time, she said Butler did not start the blaze. Federal prosecutors dropped the case against him.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Grant Jaquith wrote in a memo earlier this year that there was significant evidence that Edward Leon, 43, of St. Johnsville, was involved in the fire. Leon was later convicted of lying to a grand jury about his whereabouts at the time of the fire.
Safyre Terry, who survived a tragic fire in 2013, formally thanking Schenectady firefighters on her 9th birthday. pic.twitter.com/TwYFB5SE0I
— Dan Bazile (@danbazile) September 2, 2016
Leon is serving a 10-year sentence for perjury. He denies any role in the fire.
In his sentencing recommendation, Jaquith stated that there was also significant evidence implicating Duell in the fire.
“However hard it is to believe that a mother would falsely claim to have been involved in the murder of her children, the court need not decide whether to credit the defendant’s incriminating or self-serving narrative. Regardless of where the truth lies, there is no question that the defendant’s false statements — whether on May 24, 2013, or January 31, 2014 - were intended to thwart the investigation into the arson and have done so,” Jaquith wrote.
“Here, (Duell’s) perjury was the most reprehensible imaginable: extensive, deliberate, detailed, and enduring falsehoods about an arson homicide that killed the defendant’s own young children and crippled the federal criminal investigation to bring the person or persons responsible to justice.”
Jaquith asked the judge to sentence Duell to the 15-year maximum.
Cheryl Coleman, attorney for Duell, asked the judge to show her client leniency.
“It is true that Jennica Duell, back in May of 2013, would not have been a candidate for ‘mother of the year,’” Coleman wrote in an Aug. 26 pre-sentencing memo to Sharpe.
Coleman placed the blame for the fire on Leon. She questioned why Duell should be punished worse than the man the federal government admittedly suspects of starting the fire.
In March 2014, Leon said he went to 438 Hulett St. on the morning of the fire. And Leon admitted he held a grudge against Terry, who planned to marry Leon’s ex-girlfriend, Brianne Frolke.
“Leon, against whom a great deal of evidence has been produced as the arsonist/killer of my client’s children and their father, was sentenced by this court after trial to 10 years. The government now somehow asks this court with a straight face to sentence Ms. Duell, to 15 years,” Coleman wrote. “Your honor, for so many reasons, I would respectfully ask this court not to do so. Justice dictates in this case, a sentence below the guideline levels, and significantly less than her children’s killer.”
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