Convicted for manslaughter, a Massachusetts man was additionally sentenced in federal court on Monday for illegal possession of a weapon used in a 2017 double homicide in Townshend.
Justin Orwat, 51, was sentenced to seven and a half years for illegally possessing the .45-caliber handgun and ammunition he used to kill Amanda Sanderson and Steven Lovely on October 27, 2017, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Vermont.
The time will be served consecutively with the approximately 15-year state sentence Orwat received in Windham Superior Court on Dec. 10 after he was convicted by the state for manslaughter, U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III said.
Taken together, the state and federal sentences add up to a prison sentence of 22.5 years. He will serve the state sentence first. After the federal sentence, Orwat will be subject to three years of federal supervised release, the release stated.
“Based on the imposition of consecutive state and federal sentences, Justin Orwat will be removed from society until he is an old man,” U.S. Attorney Nikolas P. Kerest said in the release.
The state tried to get “the best possible outcome on behalf of the victims of this crime,” Windham County State’s Attorney Tracy Kelly Shriver said in the release, adding that they negotiated “a resolution in which the defendant accepted responsibility for his actions and received a sentence commensurate with the seriousness of his offenses.”
The case dates back to a 2017 house fire. Two bodies were found in the burned-out remains of a cabin at Shirley Circle and the case was ruled a homicide by gunshot. The investigation charged Orwat, then 46, with aggravated murder and first-degree arson, the Brattleboro Reformer reported.
Orwat is being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in Swanton. He was represented by Dan Sedon of Chelsea. Deputy State’s Attorney Steven Brown prosecuted the case in Windham Superior Court. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Drescher prosecuted the federal offense.
— Auditi Guha
