A man convicted of killing a University of Vermont student says he’s been the target of a lynching.
In a letter to the judge who will sentence him Friday, 38-year-old Brian Rooney said being convicted doesn’t mean a person is guilty.
In May, a jury convicted him in the 2006 slaying of Michelle Gardner-Quinn, 21, of Arlington, Va. Prosecutors say Rooney had a chance meeting with her on a downtown Burlington street when she borrowed his cell phone because the battery in hers had gone dead.
Rooney, who was convicted of aggravated murder, faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.