PORTLAND, Maine — A man was sentenced to 11 years in prison Tuesday morning for a murder he committed more than 10 years ago.
Cumberland County Superior Justice Nancy Mills accepted a plea deal for Abdi Awad to spend 11 years behind bars for shooting and killing Allen MacLean in Portland on August 1, 2011. The agreement was a sentence of 30 years with all but 11 suspended and four years of probation.
There were no developments in the case until August 2021 when police charged Awad with murder. At the time, Awad was already behind bars serving a 25-year sentence for elevated aggravated assault.
"I accept my faith in my sentence and this will not stop me continuing improving myself," Awad said.
Tuesday's sentencing was emotional for the victim's family who has been waiting for justice since their loved one was murdered 12 years ago. MacLean's daughter wrote in a statement read aloud in the courtroom that her father was "a ray of sunshine" and he "lived his life to the fullest."
While Awad has been behind bars for more than a decade, he and people closest to him say he's a changed man. Defense attorney Verne Paradie said in his 24 years of being an attorney, he's never seen a defendant have so much support.
"Abdi is the most peaceful person that I know, and I know that that's hard to believe considering the mistakes that he's made as a young man," Brandon Brown, a man formerly incarcerated with Awad said. "But I would also like to offer to the court that I made many mistakes as a young man too."
Awad's transformation was the focal point of the sentencing as several people, like college professors and colleagues, asked the judge to accept the plea agreement.
"Across all of these spaces that I have been with Abdi in, I have seen him bring light and love and truly peace to these communities," Swathi Sivasubramanian, who works at the University of Southern Maine in Youth and Community Engaged Justice, said.
However, regardless of how much Awad may have changed, Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Ackerman said, "Allen paid the ultimate price for Awad to turn his life around."
"This guy's going to get out in 11 years. It just doesn't seem like justice to me," a family member of MacLean said.
Ackerman said it would have been a risk had the case gone to trial because the quality of the evidence can degrade over the span of 12 years.
"The sentence that was reached certainly pales in comparison to what he should receive for taking another person's life," she said.