ST PAUL, Minn — A federal judge has released the sentencing date for Derek Chauvin on his civil rights violations in the death of George Floyd.
The former Minneapolis police officer will be sentenced at 2 p.m. Thursday in St. Paul, according to the U.S. District Court.
Chauvin was also convicted on state charges of murder and manslaughter and is already serving a 22 1/2-year state sentence. He would serve the federal sentence at the same time as the state sentence.
Last month, federal prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson to sentence Chauvin to 25 years for violating the rights of Floyd, saying Chauvin's actions were cold-blooded and needless as he knelt on the Black man's neck while Floyd repeatedly said he couldn't breathe.
Chauvin pleaded guilty in December to violating Floyd’s rights, admitting for the first time that he kept his knee on Floyd’s neck — even after he became unresponsive — resulting in Floyd's death. Chauvin, who is white, admitted he willfully deprived Floyd of his right to be free from unreasonable seizure, including unreasonable force by a police officer, during the May 2020 arrest.
Floyd's killing sparked immediate protests in Minneapolis that spread around the U.S. and beyond in a reckoning over police brutality and discrimination involving people of color.
As part of his plea agreement, Chauvin also pleaded guilty to violating the rights of a then-14-year-old Black boy who he restrained in an unrelated case in 2017.
Judge Magnuson accepted the plea deal, in which both sides agreed Chauvin should face 20 to 25 years, with prosecutors seeking the high end of the range.
Judge Magnuson also presided over the trial of three other ex-officers who were convicted of related federal civil rights charges in Floyd's death. Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng remain free while they await their sentencing dates, which have not been scheduled.
Lane has also pleaded guilty to a state count of aiding and abetting manslaughter, while Thao and Kueng face an October trial on state charges of aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
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