BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) - Montana’s Board of Pardons and Parole has decided a man charged in connection to a 2006 murder will remain in jail for at least six more years.
John Lebrum, a one-time football player at Montana State University, pleaded guilty to robbery and received a 40-year sentence in 2008. Another man, Branden Miller, separately pleaded guilty to deliberate homicide and received a 125-year sentence.
At a hearing before the board on Thursday, Lebrum said Miller alone shot 26-year-old Jason Wright in a field west of Bozeman. Miller, though, has claimed that Lebrum killed Wright.
According to The Bozeman Daily Chronicle , the investigation eventually uncovered a cocaine distribution ring that led to convictions against six football players and the head football coach’s firing.
Wright’s family and prosecutors opposed Lebrum’s release.
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