- A federal judge accepted
Derek Chauvin 's guilty plea in violating the civil rights ofGeorge Floyd . - Chauvin pleaded guilty in December to the civil rights charge.
A federal judge has accepted a plea agreement between the ex-Minneapolis officer who killed George Floyd and prosecutors.
US District Court Judge Paul A. Magnuson signed a document Wednesday accepting the plea that Derek Chauvin entered in December, admitting to willfully violating Floyd's civil rights in his May 2020 killing. He will be sentenced to 20 to 25 years in prison in the federal case, the agreement states.
Floyd died on May 25 after Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes during an arrest.
In video of the arrest, Floyd, whose killing sparked racial-injustice protests worldwide, can be heard repeatedly saying he can't breathe.
Chauvin was found guilty of killing Floyd in state court in April 2021 and sentenced to a 22-and-a-half-year prison term. The federal sentence will run concurrently.
As part of the plea agreement, a second federal case charging Chauvin of violating the rights of a 14-year-old boy in 2017 will be dismissed.
In that case, prosecutors accused Chauvin of using his authority as an officer to deprive the Black teenager of his constitutionally protected civil rights when he held his knee to his upper back and neck for 17 minutes while he lay prone, was handcuffed, and was not resisting, according to the federal indictment.
The three other officers who were present for Floyd's arrest — Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng, and Tou Thao — were previously found guilty in the federal case of violating Floyd's civil rights.
They are scheduled to go to trial this summer on state charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter.