A Michigan inmate could spend up to 30 more years in prison for killing his alleged white supremacist cellmate who tried to sexually assault him.
Anthony Shacks Jr. beat to death 50-year-old Michael Anastasio in their cell in April 2019 and was charged with open murder, but he pleaded guilty to manslaughter during his trial in September, and a judge imposed a sentence of 62 months, or just over five years, to 30 years in prison, reported MLive.
The 24-year-old Shacks had asked to see his psychiatric worker the day of the beating and said he was having a breakdown, and Anastasio tried to rape him when he returned to their shared cell at Saginaw Correctional Facility.
Shacks fought back and beat him with a Master Lock tied to a hotplate's electrical cord and stabbed him with a pen, and Anastasio died hours later at a hospital.
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Manslaughter typically carries a 15-year felony sentence, while open murder carries a possible life sentence, but Shacks got a longer prison term due to his previous convictions for armed robbery and one of felony firearm-pneumatic gun.
Shacks' earliest possible release date for those previous convictions was February 2042 and his maximum release date was February 2060, and he won't receive credit for time served on the manslaughter sentence because he was already in prison at the time of the homicide.
Anastasio, who had at least 12 felony convictions, had been in prison since December 2018 before he was killed.
Evidence was presented at Shacks' trial showing that Anastasio was a white supremacist, but prison records do not indicate any known ties to Aryan Brotherhood or other similar groups.
