(09/13/07) GARDEN CITY - A Long Island man who admitted firing at another vehicle during a wild car chase following a botched robbery has been sentenced to 18 years to life in prison. Nineteen-year-old Russell Cronin, of Lake Ronkonkoma, pleaded guilty in June to second-degree murder in the death of 18-year-old Thomas Herzberg. Cronin admitted he fired at Herzberg's vehicle but missed. He testified at the murder trial of codefendant Brian Rivera that Rivera took the .357 revolver from him and fired twice, fatally wounding Herzberg in the head before Herzberg crashed into a tree. Cronin apologized at his sentencing in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead. The 19-year-old Rivera was convicted of second-degree murder last month. He faces 25 years-to-life when he is sentenced on October 11. Another codefendant, 20-year-old Michael Weed of Lake Ronkonkoma, pleaded guilty last January to second-degree murder and is expected to be sentenced to 15 years to life later this month. According to prosecutors, the men confronted Herzberg and another man last October, in Holbrook, with the intent of robbing them of $1,500 they believed they were carrying. When Herzberg realized what was happening, he drove off. Weed and two co-defendants chased them in Weed's mother's SUV for about two miles.

In court, the victim's father said all three defendants deserve the maximum sentence. "Do you know how I spent his 19th birthday? In the cemetery," he said.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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