A Florida motorist who gunned down a fellow driver in a road rage shooting over a tossed McDonald's cup of Coke will spend the next two decades in prison.
This week, Nicholas Koontz, 26, was sentenced to 25 years behind bars with credit for time served in the fatal shooting of 31-year-old Timothy Andricks in 2021, prison records show.
A jury failed to convict him of murder, but instead found him guilty on a manslaughter charge during a 3-day trial.
"We are pleased that Mr. Koontz was not convicted of what he was charged with, murder, but disappointed that he was found guilty of the lesser offense of manslaughter," Koontz's attorney, Roger Futerman, told the Bradenton Herald earlier this year following the jury's decision in April.
Andricks was found lying dead in a Bradenton, Florida roadway in October 2021.
At trial, Koontz argued the killing was self-defense and testified at trial that it was Andricks who cut him off, flipped him off, and threw his drink into his moving vehicle as they drove alongside each other, the paper reported.
Koontz then chased Andricks until the victim pulled into a neighborhood. Both men got out of their vehicles, and Koontz shot Andricks 11 times, prosecutors said, citing doorbell camera footage, according to WTSP-TV.
"The defendant created this situation," Assistant State Attorney Suzanne O'Donnell said, the Herald reported. "He escalated this situation. He made it worse and then complained when it went foul."
Following his release from prison, Koontz is ordered to five years probation.
