Joshua Mitchell, the young man convicted of killing a gas station attendant in a fatal gas-and-dash in 2015, apologized for his actions after being sentenced.
"If I had the chance to switch places with Ms. Rashidi, I would," said Mitchell after learning of his 11-year sentence. Mitchell's sentence include a lifetime ban from driving.
Mitchell, 22, was found guilty of manslaughter earlier this year in the death of Maryam Rashidi Ashtiani, a gas attendant at the Centex station on 16 Avenue N.W.
The court said Mitchell was behind the wheel of a truck that ran over the woman when she attempted to intervene after witnessing the driver fill up with $113 of gas and drive away without paying.
Ashtiani pursued the truck to a nearby parking lot and ended up jumping onto the roof to get the driver to stop. During the course of the incident, she fell off the truck and was subsequently run over. She died a few days later in hospital.
He was originally on trial for second-degree murder in the death. Mitchell was also found guilty of hit and run, theft of fuel and the theft of the truck.
Ashtiani's brother, Mohammed Rashdi, was in court on Wednesday along with his mother and a judge read out a victim impact statement from Mohammed and Ashtiani's late husband Ahmed Shalloo.
Shalloo died in a serious crash in B.C. when he was on his way to Calgary to visit his wife's grave earlier this year.
In it, he wrote about how heartbreaking the loss is and says that Ashtiani's son missed his mother and wondered who would be able to "replace that absence".
Mohammed's victim impact statement spoke of the mental and economic toll the situation has taken on his family. "Mitchell has hurt my family in so many ways," he said.
Mitchell has been in jail since his arrest in June 2015 and will receive three years credit for that pre-sentence custody.
