tad.dickens@roanoke.com 981-3236

A Roanoke man will serve 12 years in prison for first-degree murder after fatally stabbing a man who attempted to give him a "wedgie" at a Grandin Road sports bar, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Michael Keith Williams, 35, was convicted in May of killing Jonathan Freel after the two argued April 5, 2003, over the attempted underwear-pulling prank. The jury recommended a 20-year sentence, the minimum.

On Tuesday, Circuit Judge Clifford Weckstein confirmed that sentence but suspended eight years of it. Williams must spend 10 years on probation after his release, Weckstein ruled.

City prosecutors Donald Caldwell and Betty Jo Anthony said they had not seen such a short first-degree murder sentence during the more than two decades they have been in office. Caldwell, the commonwealth's attorney, said he was not aware of a judge suspending a portion of a jury's recommended sentence for first-degree murder, except at the commonwealth's request.

"I guess it's disappointing that the judge thought it was a case that was beneath the [voluntary sentencing] guidelines," said Anthony, the deputy commonwealth's attorney who helped prosecute the case. "I'm sure he sentenced Mr. Williams as he thought was appropriate."

Freel's wife, Elizabeth Freel, said she thought it was less than Williams deserved.

"He took my husband and my best friend from me, right in front of me. I was right there," Elizabeth Freel said after the hearing. "And he just left him there."

Tony Anderson, one of Williams' attorneys, had argued that the case rated nothing more than a voluntary manslaughter conviction, if that, but Weckstein rejected Anderson's motion to set aside the jury verdict.

After the hearing, Anderson said that the time his client will wind up serving is more in line with what he would have received from a manslaughter conviction.

"While I don't know that's what the court was thinking or doing - it's a pure guess on my part - it gets close" to the 10-year maximum sentence for manslaughter, Anderson said.

Voluntary sentencing guidelines in the case, calculated after the trial, called for at least 23 years and one month in prison, Anthony said. She had recommended the full 20 years that the jury had imposed.

Evidence in the trial showed that Freel, 35, had previously been kicked out of three Salem nightspots because of abusive, belligerent behavior.

That night, the 6-foot, 2, 300-pound Freel had a blood alcohol content of more than twice the legal limit for driving in Virginia, testimony showed.

Before the fatal encounter, Freel was among friends giving one another wedgies at AllSports Cafe after midnight. Lawyers said at trial that a recent viewing of "Jackass: The Movie" had inspired the friends to resuscitate the ancient schoolyard trick, but the wedgies were accompanied by laughter.

Williams didn't know any of this when he came in about 1 a.m. with a group of friends who had been out drinking. Williams ran into a co-worker at the bar, and as they talked, Freel snuck up, grabbed the co-worker's waistband, and pulled it upward - a wedgie strong enough to detach the elastic from his underwear, according to testimony.

Freel gave the man $20 for the ripped shorts, but Williams thought the stranger had disrespected his co-worker. When Freel decided to give his next wedgie to Williams, the trouble began, according to testimony.

The ensuing fracas put them in a darkened field near the bar, where Freel wound up stabbed in the neck and disemboweled. He staggered into an alley by the bar and fell, dying.

Elizabeth Freel said after the hearing that she does not deny her husband could be loud and obnoxious after a few drinks, but that he was the kindest man she'd ever met and always looked out for his friends.

"He taught us a lot about what it means to be a good person and to be strong, and take care of each other," she said. "A lot of what he taught me in life is helping me to get through this."