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CHRISTOPHER GOFFARDJabari Armstrong shot Lai Chau in the head three times during a December 2001 carjacking.
TAMPA - Jabari Armstrong, the man who shot a University of South Florida student in the head three times during a December 2001 carjacking, will serve life in prison for his crime.
Armstrong, 23, was convicted last Friday of charges of attempted murder, kidnapping, carjacking, robbery, arson and tampering with evidence in connection with the attack on Lai Chau, who survived after walking and crawling 200 yards to get help.
On Tuesday, Hillsborough Circuit Judge Rex Barbas sentenced Armstrong to four consecutive life terms.
A life sentence was mandatory under the prison-release reoffender law because at the time he attacked Chau, Armstrong had been free just three months from Florida prison, where he had served time for carjacking and robbery.
Authorities said Armstrong and his stepbrother, Tobaris Arrington, approached Chau on Dec. 13, 2001, as she was about to get out of her Acura Integra near her N 30th Street apartment.
They held her at gunpoint in the car, robbed her and drove her to a nearby elementary school, where they ordered her out, police said. As she was walking away, Armstrong shot her. The men drove off and torched her car.
Arrington pleaded guilty in December to charges of carjacking, kidnapping, robbery, arson and tampering with physical evidence. He is scheduled to be sentenced before Barbas in November.
A third participant in the crime, Anthony Smith, pleaded guilty in September to charges of accessory after the fact, arson and tampering with evidence. Barbas sentenced him to seven years in prison, though he is already serving a 15-year term for an unrelated conviction for dealing in stolen property.
Prosecutor Donna Hanes said Chau, now 22, attends college but suffered almost total hearing loss in her right ear from the attack.
A doctor testified that if any of the three bullets that struck her head had been fired at a slightly different angle, the attack would have been fatal, and if she had not struggled to safety, she would have bled to death.