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Andrey Bridges tells a judge and the family of murder victim Cemia Dove that he was sorry he didn't stop her murder -- but that he didn't kill her.

(Chuck Crow, The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Common Pleas Judge Hollie Gallagher Wednesday sentenced Andrey Bridges to life in prison with the possibility of parole after nearly 20 years.

A jury found Bridges guilty last week of stabbing to death Cemia "Ce Ce" Dove, a 20-year-old transgender woman, during a date at his home in Olmsted Township in January.

At the hearing, Bridges insisted to the judge that he did not kill Dove, who was born Carl Acoff Jr. He said that another man, who was a witness at the trial, killed Dove and he and another witness helped clean up after Dove was stabbed.

"I'm sorry that I wasn't strong enough to tell anybody what really happened," Bridges said. "I'm sorry I couldn't save him. I'm sorry that I witnessed how he died." He said he feared about speaking the truth because one of the other men involved had money and threatened his children.

Bridges' proclamation was upsetting to Dove's many family members who attended the hearing. Cousin Nicole Cantie asked Bridges why he thought he had the right to decide who lived and who died. She accused him of throwing her cousin out like a piece of trash. "You, Andrey, are a coward," Cantie said. "Was it worth it? You could have just walked away."

Gallagher's sentence also included time for other convictions, including tampering with evidence and for a probation violation on a case for which Gallagher had previously sentenced him.

Assistant County Prosecutor Brian Radigan had asked for a maximum sentence and said the brutality of the 40 stab wounds to Dove's body and the way she was disposed of, tied up and tossed in a small lake, showed "utter disrespect for a human."

Attorney David Grant, who represented Bridges, said that his client had a low IQ that bordered on mild retardation and a history of drug and alcohol abuse that likely played into what happened. He said the crime was not planned but one of passion and asked Gallagher to allow the parole board to decide when to release Bridges.

The jury last week deliberated for about a day before rejecting Bridges' declarations of innocence made during four hours of recorded police interrogations after his arrest in May.

The jury didn't find Bridges guilty of the most serious charge -- aggravated murder -- which would have required premeditation. Instead, the jurors convicted him of murder, finding that an enraged Bridges killed Dove purposefully and during the commission of a felonious assault.

According to testimony from Olmsted Township Police Lt. Matthew Vanyo, Bridges, 36, called Dove several times the morning of Jan. 5, and hired a taxicab to pick her up and drive her to his apartment. Bridges paid the driver $100. Dove was never seen alive again.

Later that day, two men stopped by the apartment house to pick up rent money that Bridges owed. They reported finding blood spattered in the apartment, Bridges' hand bleeding profusely, and a bonfire burning in the yard.

Three months later, on April 18, police discovered Dove's body submerged in a pond next to the apartment.