ALBANY — A judge sentenced knife-wielding felon Jimmie Lee Allen to 25 years to life in state prison Wednesday for stabbing his roommate Rodney McLean to death in the South End as the victim’s mother and sister told the killer to “burn in hell.”
The 60-year-old Allen, whose rap sheet includes a knifepoint sexual assault and robbery in New Jersey and an attempted robbery in Albany County, flashed his middle finger at the victim’s family after Albany County Judge Andra Ackerman imposed his sentence. Allen repeated the profane gesture at a Times Union reporter who was taking pictures as deputies escorted him from the courtroom.
On March 30, a jury convicted Allen of second-degree murder for fatally stabbing McLean in their residence on Clinton Street, between Third and Fourth avenues, during the early hours of Aug. 12.
“You butchered my son, allowing him no opportunity to defend himself,” Hattie Porter, the mother of McLean, said in a statement read aloud by her daughter, Kesha McLean. The mother slammed Allen for his repeated lack of remorse, telling Allen his cold-blooded demeanor would “serve you well while you burn in hell.”
The mother said she was pleased he would spend the rest of his days in prison “rotting in a cell like the caged animal you are and for the rest of your pitiful life.”
In tears, Kesha McLean added her own thoughts that the pain of losing her brother will never go away. They had been “joined at the hip,” she said, noting her brother had always been there to tell her how proud he was of her accomplishments, such as obtaining degrees and becoming a grandmother.
“And now I don’t have that because you took that from me,” the sister told Allen. “And for that, I hope you burn in hell… I hope you rot like the animal you are. And I hope your family will have to suffer the way we suffer every day because you didn’t have to take…
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