LITTLE ROCK, AR — The Russellville doctor convicted of bombing the chief of the Arkansas Medical Board and nearly killing him was sentenced to life in prison on Monday afternoon.
The federal judge handed down the most severe penalty possible for former Russellville doctor Randeep Mann and ordered to pay a $100,000 fine. He also faces a potential $1.7 million in restitution, but the amount will likely be reduced by the judge at a later date.
In three brief minutes, Dr. Trent Pierce of West Memphis made it clear he was attacked by Mann as an act of revenge designed to intimidate and instill fear in other members of the state medical board.
Two years after nearly dying on his driveway, Pierce told a federal judge the bombing jeopardizes his ability to see and hear for the rest of his life.
And six months after a jury found Randeep Mann guilty of orchestrating the bombing, U.S. district judge Brian Miller gave Mann life in prison.
Assistant U.S attorney Jane Duke saying it sends a clear message.
"If you are dissatisfied with a decision or resolution of some civil or administrative matter, you simply don't resort to tactics like this in a civilized society," Duke says.
Mann's wife Sangeeta also convicted of obstructing justice in the federal investigation of her husband. Prosecutors wanted 4 to 5 years in prison for her, they only got one.
"We think any amount of prison time for Sue Mann is a deterrent," Duke says.
"We're grateful to the judge for being lenient," her attorney Jeff Rosenzweig says.
She is free while she appeals, Randeep Mann is not free, but his attorneys tell me they're appealing too.
"First and foremost the sufficiency of the evidence. We have an abiding conviction that the jury just got this one wrong," attorney Blake Hendrix says.
Teresa Harris doesn't buy it. She says her daughter Ellie died after Dr. Mann overprescribed narcotics to her.
That was one of the primary reasons Pierce and the medical board took away Mann's license to prescribe narcotics in 2006.
"He doesn't need to practice any kind of medicine, the people of Arkansas are a lot safer with him behind bars," Harris says.
Still an unanswered question lingers, who actually planted the grenade that nearly killed Trent Pierce.
"I have not one clue who did it," Hendrix says. "I can tell you we assume that person is out there running around."
"It has always been the theory of this case that other individuals were involved," Duke says.
But the supposed mastermind of the attack will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Pierce and his wife declined to address the media but through prosecutors said they wanted to thank their family and friends for their support through this on-going ordeal.
