AKRON, Ohio -- Damian Bradford, drug dealer, hired killer and witness for the prosecution, may be the only survivor of the Moonda murder case.

		Listen in Staff writer Milan Simonich reports from Akron, Ohio, on the sentencing of Damian Bradford. A guide to the Moonda case Previous Post-Gazette articles, photos and graphics, plus federal court documents, are available on our Moonda index page.

He received a 17 1/2-year prison sentence yesterday for the premeditated murder of Dr. Gulam Moonda.

Federal prosecutors said they negotiated the plea bargain with Mr. Bradford to strengthen their case against Donna Moonda, wife of the slain physician and architect of his murder.

A jury last week convicted her of hiring Mr. Bradford to kill Dr. Moonda along the Ohio Turnpike. The jurors will decide next week whether to sentence Mrs. Moonda to death or life in prison.

Dr. Moonda, 69, of Hermitage, Pa., died on the roadside two years ago. Mrs. Moonda, 48, could die in a government-sanctioned execution. If jurors spare her life, she would remain in prison until she dies.

Mr. Bradford, 26, should fare better. He could go free when he is about 40 years old if he behaves himself in prison and receives a sentence reduction for "good time."

He said he is haunted by the murder, thinking every day of how he shot an innocent man.

None of Dr. Moonda's relatives was in court yesterday, but Mr. Bradford nonetheless stood and apologized to them for all the pain he has caused.

"From my heart, I'm sorry," he said. At another point, he accepted responsibility for his part in the murder, saying: "I made the decision to do what I did."

But then he also blamed Mrs. Moonda for his incarceration, saying she betrayed him by reneging on her agreement to lie for him if he were arrested.

Mr. Bradford said she was supposed to take the witness stand at his trial and testify falsely that he was not the gunman who killed her husband as she watched. Instead, Mrs. Moonda said she would take the Fifth Amendment and decline to testify about the murder.

Once that happened, Mr. Bradford pleaded guilty and began cooperating with prosecutors. He laid out the plot that resulted in Dr. Moonda's death, saying Mrs. Moonda orchestrated the murder so she could collect millions in inheritance.

Mr. Bradford, formerly of Center, Pa., became a small-time drug dealer after he graduated from high school in 1999. He met Mrs. Moonda by chance in 2004 when they were patients together in a drug rehabilitation center. They soon began an affair, and Mrs. Moonda lavished gifts and money on Mr. Bradford.

In turn, he said, he eventually agreed to kill Dr. Moonda for an even bigger payday -- one that he expected to bring him at least $1 million.

Nancy Kelley, one of two assistant U.S. attorneys who prosecuted Mr. Bradford, needed only a sentence to describe him yesterday.

"Damian Bradford is, plain and simple, a murderer," Ms. Kelley said.

But without his plea bargain, she said, Mrs. Moonda might have won an acquittal or avoided prosecution altogether.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol built a powerful but circumstantial case against Mr. Bradford. Using cell phone records, troopers tracked him from Pennsylvania to the Ohio Turnpike the day of the murder.

Still, they had no direct proof that put the gun in his hand. Ms. Kelley said prosecutors were concerned that if Mr. Bradford went to trial and got a not-guilty verdict, Mrs. Moonda also would slip away unpunished.

Ms. Kelley said that prosecutors decided to offer the 17¹/₂-year plea bargain to Mr. Bradford in return for his cooperation against Donna Moonda. His testimony helped prosecutors convict Mrs. Moonda of murder for hire and three related felonies.

U.S. District Judge David Dowd had discretion to lengthen Mr. Bradford's prison sentence.

But Judge Dowd accepted the prosecutors' recommendation to the letter, saying they had good reason to handle Mr. Bradford as they did.

Before Mr. Bradford's sentence was announced, he heard a letter sent to the court from Dr. Faroq Moonda, 33-year-old nephew of the victim.

Faroq Moonda said his uncle was born into a family of modest means in India. Gulam Moonda became the first to go to college and then, burning with ambition, went on to medical school and became a urologist.

Gulam Moonda used his earnings to help lift his family in India into the middle class. He also helped strangers, building schools in India and giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to charities here and abroad.

Faroq Moonda said Mr. Bradford and Donna Moonda are hated by many for what they did, but he approved of prosecutors treating them differently.

"Damian killed Uncle, the most influential person in my life," said Faroq Moonda, an anesthesiologist. "[But] we hold Donna more accountable for Damian's actions."