Holmes sentenced to 20 years

Jermaine Holmes, the Northampton man who pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing a Riverside man during a fray outside the Hampton Bays Diner last year, was sentenced today to 20 years in prison and five years of probation.

Mr. Holmes, 26, was originally charged with second-degree murder in the death of 26-year-old Calvin Butts, but the charge was reduced to first-degree manslaughter as part of a plea bargain. Rather than facing 25 years to life in prison on the murder charge, he faced a sentence between 12 and a half and 25 years under terms of the deal. Prosecutors were seeking the maximum, according to Robert Clifford, a spokesman for Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota.

Assistant District Attorney James Chalifoux said Mr. Holmes and Mr. Butts were drawn into a confrontation that began with their respective brothers in the diner’s parking lot.

According to Mr. Chalifoux, in the early morning hours of May 24, 2009, Mr. Holmes’s older brother, Jimmy Dean, started a fight with Mr. Butts’s younger brother, Chris Butts.

“From what we learned, the fight was because Jimmy Dean felt that Chris Butts did not give him his ‘proper respect,’” Mr. Chalifoux wrote in an e-mail. “We heard rumors about other things but could not confirm anything.”

Chris Butts was getting the better of Mr. Dean in the scuffle, he said, and some of Mr. Dean’s friends jumped in. It was unclear exactly how many people were involved in the altercation, he wrote.

Prosecutors believe that Calvin Butts, a 2001 graduate of Riverhead High School, was trying to break up the escalating fight when he was stabbed multiple times. Mr. Butts was transported to Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead, where he died.

Witnesses tied Mr. Holmes to the scene, according to Mr. Chalifoux. Mr. Holmes turned himself in to authorities on June 1, about a week after the incident.