Ex-Florida ballerina Ashley Benefield sentenced to 20 years in shooting death of husband
· Yahoo NewsSARASOTA, Fla. — A former ballerina was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison for the shooting death of her estranged husband at her Florida home in 2020.
The sentencing came about four months after a six-person jury found Ashley Benefield, 32, guilty of manslaughter. Benefield was initially charged with second-degree murder but jurors chose the lesser manslaughter offense after about seven hours of deliberation.
While Manatee County Circuit Court Judge Matt Whyte said he believed Benefield had been under extreme duress and showed remorse for the shooting that happened on Sept. 27, 2020, he did not grant her a reduced sentence. Her attorney Neil Taylor said the decision would be appealed.
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Taylor claimed his client acted in self-defense when she fatally shot her estranged husband, Doug Benefield, 58, following a tumultuous and abusive relationship that lasted four years. The shooting occurred during an argument at Ashley Benefield's home in Lakewood Ranch, a planned community northeast of Sarasota, Florida.
A probable cause affidavit states that a neighbor had called police when Ashley Benefield, who appeared distraught, pounded on his door moments after the shooting while still holding the gun.
Ashley Benefield showed no apparent emotion during Tuesday's sentencing. While Whyte announced his ruling, a comforting hand wrapped around Eva Benefield, Doug's oldest daughter from a previous marriage, as she sat on the left side of the gallery surrounded by her family and her late father's supporters.
Whyte also sentenced the former ballerina to 10 years of probation after her prison time. Within 60 days of starting her probation, Ashley Benefield will need to obtain a mental health evaluation and complete any recommended treatment. Whyte ordered that Ashley Benefield must also forfeit the gun used in the shooting.
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"I think both sides have ... talked about lenses and perspectives," Whyte said. "And I think this is a good example of exactly that where, whatever lens you view this case from can really affect how you view the players, the results, the participants, and the outcome."
'It was murder': Husband charged in case of missing Virginia woman
Tumultuous relationship
Ashley and Doug Benefield met in 2016 and were married 13 days later following a whirlwind romance. She was 24 and he was 54, according to media reports at the time.
During the early years of their marriage, the two founded the American National Ballet but the company fell apart before it could get off the ground, according to testimony during trial. Ashley Benefield is a graduate of the Maryland Youth Ballet.
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Throughout their marriage, the couple experienced a tumultuous relationship involving domestic abuse allegations against Doug Benefield, marriage counseling, and a string of litigation in both South Carolina and Florida — where Ashley Benefield had moved to live with her mother after becoming pregnant in 2017.
Ashley Benefield had argued that the case should be thrown out based on Florida's "Stand your ground" law. In her motion to dismiss the case, she claimed her husband was abusive and volatile, regularly carrying a loaded weapon and once firing a gun into their kitchen ceiling to intimidate her.
What led up to the 2020 shooting?
On the afternoon of Sept. 27, 2020, Doug Benefield arrived at the Lakewood Ranch home with a U-Haul truck to help pack for a move to Maryland. It appeared Doug Benefield was under the impression he, his wife, and daughter would move together, although he would live separately, according to court documents and previous testimony.
Taylor told jurors that frustrations mounted as the couple packed and escalated into an argument. Despite Ashley Benefield's attempts to de-escalate, court documents state Doug Benefield became physical — body-checking Ashley Benefield with a box, blocking her from exiting a room, and following her into her bedroom where she grabbed a gun.
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When Doug Benefield allegedly advanced toward her, Ashley Benefield fired the gun, according to court documents.
Witnesses outside the home told investigators they heard about six gunshots and about 30 seconds later, saw Ashley Benefield run out of the house toward a neighbor's home with a gun still in her hand, screaming and crying.
Family tries to focus statements on positive characteristics of Doug Benefield
Outside the Manatee County Judicial Center, Tommie and Eva Benefield stopped to speak to reporters.
"The sentencing means we know what it's going to cost her, finally, as opposed to what it's cost their daughter, Ashley and Doug's daughter, (and) what it's cost Eva every day in her life," said Tommie Benefield, Doug Benefield's cousin.
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He added that the sentencing was a good step in seeing Ashley Benefield pay a price. Tommie Benefield said his family and the prosecution would fight avidly during the appeals process to keep Ashley Benefield in jail since they believe her to be a flight risk.
Tears glazed Eva Benefield's eyes as she stood before the judicial center. Two red hearts stood out against her dark brown plaid suit jacket — one stitched on the left side below her heart, the second stitched onto her back on the right side.
The hearts, she said, were a symbol of where her father had been shot.
Earlier in the courtroom, Eva Benefield recalled her memories of her loving father: the two of them enjoying a Valentine's Day dinner, the good morning texts with Bible verses she'd wake up to from her father, his efforts to attend all her extracurricular activities and his driving an hour out of his way to drop off coffee for her and her friends.
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Her father was always a phone call or text away, Eva Benefield said, and would always answer the phone if she called, especially after her mother's death. He knew how anxious Eva would get if he didn't pick up.
"I watched my dad paint over every memory and every corner of that house, changed the furniture, rid the house of every bit of my mom that was left so you could enjoy life without the remnants of my dad's late wife and soulmate," Eva Benefield said. "I had to come home from school to see you barely clothed, sitting on the countertops my mom used to cook our family dinner on. I had to live in a house stripped of memories I still cling to so I can remember the happy childhood that my parents gave me."
Doug Benefield's brother, Wes Benefield, offered Ashley Benefield forgiveness, adding that he did not hate her.
Defense moves for downward departure
Taylor sought for his client to be given a downward departure in her sentencing, but Whyte declined. Taylor had urged Whyte to focus on Doug Benefield's admissions in a deposition that established a prior history of domestic violence, and a letter Ashley Benefield had left behind three years prior for her husband when she had left him to move to Florida.
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While Whyte said Taylor had proven that Doug Benefield was an initiator, willing participant, aggressor, or provoker of the incident, he didn't find that a downward departure was appropriate.
The only witness that Taylor called on Tuesday to speak before the court was Dr. Barbara Russell, a clinical social worker and mental health professional, who evaluated both Doug and Ashley Benefield before the shooting.
Russell told the judge that Ashley Benefield suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder that was caused by complex trauma, with the root cause being "the abusive relationship with Douglas Benefield, from the time the abuse began in their marriage up to the incident of the attack that went into the shooting on Sept. 27."
Assistant State Attorney Suzanne O'Donnell, the lead prosecutor on the case, pointed out to Russell that Ashley Benefield had also been diagnosed with histrionic personality disorder, a mental health condition that leads people to act in dramatic and emotional ways for attention.
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Russell said she was aware of the "false diagnosis" and explained that women who have been victimized by intimate partner violence are often mischaracterized as having the disorder, especially if the person evaluating them doesn't have a proper understanding of the complete picture.
Contributing: Thao Nguyen and Anthony Robledo, USA TODAY
Gabriela Szymanowska covers the legal system for the Herald-Tribune in partnership with Report for America. You can support her work with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America. Contact Gabriela Szymanowska at gszymanowska@gannett.com, or on X: @GabrielaSzyman3.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Former ballerina sentenced to 20 years in death of estranged husband