A 30-year-old man of Tongan descent in the United States, Otto Halafihi of Oakland, was sentenced on 5 March to 12 years imprisonment for assaulting and snatching the purse of an elderly woman in Martinez, San Francisco Bay Area last year. The victim, a 93-year-old woman Ann Marie Pederson, was hospitalized and died less than a month after the assault.

In an emotional interview with NBC News [2]last year, Otto publicly apologised and expressed his guilt fand taking responsibility for his crime.

 "I know she’s going through so much pain all because of me…I’m really sorry, I apologize, I hope you can find a way in your heart to forgive me…I didn’t mean to”.

Otto was originally charged with murder but the sentence was later downgraded. According to local news media, Otto accepted a deal with prosecutors for 12 years in prison in return for pleading guilty to robbery and elder abuse. He is also confessed to committing other break-in robberies.

He stated that at the time of the crime, he was hungry and under the influence of drugs.