Prosecutors said Cleanthony Jimerson stood above 23-year-old Lorenzo Duncan and 24-year-old Nicholas Lindsay as they lay helpless on the ground during a melee outside the Sports Page Tavern in 2013 and fired bullets into their heads and bodies.

And that friends of the two men then shot Jimerson.

Last Friday at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent, Superior Court Judge Janet Helson sentenced Jimerson to 40 years – 20 years on each count of second-degree murder – in prison, the sentences to run consecutively. The sentencing range was 32 to 48 years, including the firearm enhancements.

A jury on Oct. 30 found Jimerson guilty of two counts of second-degree murder with firearms enhancements and, because he was a convicted felon at the time of the shootings, one count of second degree unlawful possession of a firearm.

It was Jimerson’s second trial, his first having ended in hung jury on March 14 of this year. Jimerson was then up against two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Duncan and Lindsay one count of second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm. First-degree murder requires evidence of pre-meditation, while second-degree murder does not.

Also killed in that early morning melee was Antuan Greer, 21. But according to Auburn Police, a stray bullet, fired by an unknown person, likely killed him.

The Sports Page Tavern has since gone out of business.

According to what witnesses told detectives, the argument that led to the fatal shootings started between two women on the tavern’s dance floor, one of them part of the group that numbered Duncan, Lindsay and Greer.

The physical fight began outside in the parking lot, five minutes after closing, when 100 patrons were milling out, and security got busy directing people to their cars.