MIAMI _ Two years after Isabella Hellman vanished in the Caribbean Sea while on a honeymoon cruise, a federal judge sentenced her husband Lewis Richard Bennett Tuesday to eight years in prison for the involuntary manslaughter of his wife.
In a Miami courtroom, Judge Federico Moreno called it "a very sad case."
He also ordered Bennett, 42, to pay a $22, 910 in restitution, money that was seized by the FBI and have three years' supervision upon his release.
Bennett was clean shaven and wore tan and brown scrubs, a chain around his waist and handcuffs on his wrists. When Moreno asked if he wished to appeal the sentence, he said, "No your honor."
Hellman, a real estate saleswoman in Delray Beach, and Bennett had a daughter, Emelia, 2, who is being raised by his parents in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The night of May 14, 2017, Hellman and Bennett were sailing their 40-foot catamaran Surf into Summer north from Cuba and were southeast of the Florida Keys.
Hellman was an inexperienced sailor and disappeared as the boat was nearing the Bahamas.
Prosecutors accused Bennett of not searching for his wife.
Bennett said he'd been sleeping, a noise woke him up and he found Hellman was gone from their vessel.
Court documents said he had stocked a life raft with supplies that would keep him alive and accused him of sinking the catamaran on purpose. Records described quarter-sized holes in the fiberglass hull that had been made from inside the boat.
Bennett, a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and Australia, is college educated and has traveled the globe. He wants to work in solar heating after he serves his time, according to a lawyer and court documents.
Bennett was originally supposed to be sentenced in January, but Moreno postponed that until the families arranged for Hellman's relatives to visit her daughter in Scotland and for her Delray Beach condo to be sold.
Neither event has happened, though on May 9, a Palm Beach County probate court ruled that Hellman was officially dead. A judge also ordered the FBI to give the condo keys to a lawyer for Bennett's parents so that the property may be sold.
Hellman's relatives are scheduled to visit Emelia in person in June, to supplement their visits on Facetime.
Bennett apologized to Hellman's family in January, saying, "I know that they have been through unimaginable pain as a result of my actions and for that I am truly sorry."
He also called Hellman his "soulmate" and said then that losing her "was the greatest loss I have ever endured."
Still unspoken by him in court is how his wife died.
Authorities searched the ocean for four days but never found her.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons will determine where Bennett serves his time.
