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Lindsey Curry, 31, of Cleveland, was sentenced to three years in prison after he was convicted of shooting his niece and nephew with a single bullet on July 4, 2015.

(Brandon Blackwell/Northeast Ohio Media Group)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Cleveland man who shot both his niece and nephew with a single bullet as the children slept on the floor will spend three years in prison.

Cuyahoga County Judge John Sutula handed down the sentence to 31-year-old Lindsey Curry in the July 4, 2015 shooting at the children's home on Cleveland's West Side.

Sutula found Curry guilty of assault and child endangering in during a September bench trial.

Curry and the children's mother originally told police that someone shot into the house. The father of at least one of the children was arrested after the shooting on unrelated warrants, police said.

Curry said he was asleep on the couch when the gunfire went off and jerked him awake.

The bullet pierced the 2-year-old boy's stomach, then ripped into the 9-year-old girl's shoulder. It lodged in her spine leaving her paralyzed below the waist, prosecutors said.

The children were rushed to MetroHealth.

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