A highly unusual legal saga is over with a former Binghamton University nursing student being sentenced November 15 in a Nicaraguan court to the maximum penalty for strangling another student to death in his Binghamton apartment while the victim's family watched the legal proceedings on a video screen in Broome County.

Photo: Bob Joseph/WNBF News (file)
Photo: Bob Joseph/WNBF News (file)
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23-year-old Orlando Tercero was convicted of femicide in the death of Haley Anderson earlier this month following four days of testimony spread over the course of the month of October.  He was sentenced November 15 to the maximum of 30 years in a Nicaraguan prison.

Tercero had fled to his native Nicaragua after choking Anderson to death while she slept at his Oak Street Apartment in March of 2018.

He was arrested by Nicaraguan authorities who denied numerous requests by U.S. officials to return him to New York to face murder charges. Instead, Nicaragua, which has no extradition treated with the United States, chose to try Tercero in-country with the witnesses testifying via a satellite link from the Broome County District Attorney's office.

Following the sentencing, Anderson's family commented that they believed justice had been served and they had gotten the best results they could expect given how the case had to be handled thousands of miles away.

The Broome County District Attorney, Stephen Cornwell also said he was pleased with the outcome and commented on the unusual nature of the proceedings with his team having to trust and work with a legal system they were unfamiliar with and prosecutors in Nicaragua they "had never met."

There is the option for Tercero to appeal but there has been no word on whether his lawyer planned to pursue that course.

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