By Jeff Charles
Dexter Taylor, a Brooklyn-based software engineer, has been sentenced to a decade in prison for building firearms in his home using parts purchased legally. He was arrested after a SWAT raid in 2022, and a jury convicted him of 13 counts last month. Now, he is set to spend up to ten years behind bars for what many perceive as an egregious violation of his Second Amendment rights.
The sentence was handed down on Monday by Judge Abena Darkeh, who presided over Taylor’s trial. The judge’s handling of the case has been criticized, especially her decision to prohibit mention of the Second Amendment in the courtroom during the trial. In a previous interview, Vinoo Varghese, Taylor’s lawyer, described how Darkeh approached the Second Amendment issue.
“She told us, ‘Do not bring the Second Amendment into this courtroom. It doesn’t exist here. So you can’t argue Second Amendment. This is New York.’”
UPDATE: The court has sentenced Dexter Taylor to ten years in prison for building his own firearms.#IStandWithDexterTaylor pic.twitter.com/3yzL9m8pa3
— Jeff Charles, Awful Libertan Pundit🏴 (@jeffcharlesjr) May 13, 2024
Varghese recounted the sentencing hearing, saying the judge “started off by whining about the fact that she was mocked by people” on social media. Darkeh indicated that she chose not to read many of the comments made by outraged users on social media platforms. The judge rejected Varghese’s request that Taylor be given the minimum sentence of three and a half years. She argued that Taylor knew he was breaking the law and that she did not care about his political views.
“This is a guy who’s an engineer who’s done so much good in life, didn’t have a record, and you sentenced him to 10 years when you could have given him three and a half,” Varghese said.
Taylor spoke with RedState from Riker’s Island just before his sentencing. He is in good spirits despite his predicament, saying that he is “up and easy as usual” and “100 percent on mission and 100 percent uppity.”
He has been playing “a lot of chess” and doing “a lot of push-ups” while “talking to a lot of good people.”
Taylor has also been in regular contact with his parents, daughter, and ex-wife, who he says are “holding up well.”
He discussed his trial and highlighted the issues he saw in how the proceedings were handled. He said that even though he had been briefed by his lawyer about how the trial would proceed, he was “still surprised by how in line the judge seemed to be with the prosecution” and that the bias ‘went all the way from jury selection to the trial process itself.”
Taylor recalled that it “seemed like we had three prosecutors in the courtroom, the two [assistant district attorneys] and the judge working in concert.”
Indeed, in a previous interview, Varghese characterized Judge Darkeh as “the most aggressive prosecutor in the room.”
During jury selection, Darkeh attempted to “rehabilitate potential jurors” who had shown “clear bias” against Taylor and his attorney.
Taylor also pointed out that the judge would sustain objections when none were given by the prosecution. “That happened multiple times, at least a dozen or more times during the trial, where she would simply say ‘sustained’ without the prosecution having lodged an objection.”
The Judge should be arrested and Changed if violating the U.S. Constitution was a serious Crime this idiot judge should get a Life in Prison and Boycott the Big Apple this Summer if their going to Ignore the 2nd Amendment they should suffer the Consequences. Lady Liberty Leave and takes the Empire Sate and Christler buildings with her lets the whole rest City of New York decay and rot
Taylor gets 10 years for building a gun but some thug that uses a gun to rob a store gets out with no time at all. That’s Democrat “justice”.