Robert Bonelli

The state's highest court won't hear an appeal by the Saugerties man who went on a 2005 shooting spree inside the Hudson Valley Mall, effectively ending any chance Robert Bonelli Jr. had of reducing his 32-year sentence.

In a prepared statement issued Monday, Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams said the Court of Appeals denial "marks the end of Bonelli's appellate rights in New York state courts."

Bonelli, 27, had sought permission to appeal his sentence to the Court of Appeals, after the Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court, Third Department, in June ruled it could find no compelling reason to reduce the sentence meted out by state Supreme Court Justice Michael Kavanagh.

Bonelli pleaded guilty in March 2006 to 18 counts of assault, reckless endangerment, criminal use of a firearm, possession of a weapon and criminal mischief and was sentenced two years later to 32 years in state prison.

He immediately appealed his sentence, claiming his attorney, Ulster County Public Defender Andrew Kossover, was ineffective and that the sentence handed down by Kavanagh was incorrect and excessive.

The appellate court rejected Bonelli's argument, ruling Kavanagh acted properly in imposing consecutive, rather than concurrent sentences on the assault and criminal use of a firearm charges because the crimes were committed through "separate and distinct acts."

KINGSTON - Hudson Valley Mall gunman Robert Bonelli Jr. was sentenced on Friday to 32 years in state prison, the maximum allowed under the guilty plea he entered in March.

State Sup-reme Court Justice Mich-ael Kavanagh handed down the sentence after Bonelli's father tearfully pleaded for mercy and after a security camera video showing the shooting spree's first moments was shown in court.

The judge said Bonelli was "truly a disturbed, troubled man" but that the defendant clearly knew what he was doing when he opened fire in the mall on Feb. 13, 2005.

"You had to know that you ... placed lives in grave danger," Kavanagh told the 26-year-old defendant, who was clad in orange jail garb. "You simply did not care what the consequences were when you fired that weapon.

"What happened here was horrendous," the judge said.

BONELLI apologized during Friday's court proceeding, which the two victims, Thomas Haire of Pine Plains and Stephen Silk of Kingston, attended.

"I'm sorry that all this happened. This is not the kind of person that I am," Bonelli said.

Bonelli asked to address Haire directly, but Kavanagh said no.

HAIRE, a 20-year-old National Guardsman who was manning a recruiting table at the mall on the day of the shooting spree, read from a prepared statement in court.

"I wish there were mall security to protect us from Mr. Bonelli and to inform us of his whereabouts and what to do," said Haire, who suffered a serious leg injury in the shooting. "I just don't think he should have gotten as far as he did. But he did."

BONELLI'S attorney, Ulster County Public Defender Andrew Kossover, described his client as a man wracked with low self-esteem and deep depression and twisted by years of alcohol and drug abuse.

All of those things taken together created a "perfect storm," Kossover said.

Bonelli, who lived in Glasco at the time of the shooting, said in court that he felt everyone was against him and that his life was doomed in the time leading up to the shooting spree. He also said he "should have got help" long ago for his substance abuse problem.

"I just hope that this court forgives me for what I have done," Bonelli said.

"This man's judgment was not impaired," Williams said.

To make his point, Williams read aloud a journal entry that Bonelli made in 2004: "The wolf within is crawling out of my skin. ... The only one who can stop me is me. ... I will kill as many as fate allows. ... Hate is a terrible thing to waste."

Williams also quoted from a note found in Bonelli's vehicle after the shooting: "The lonely man strikes with absolute rage."

Bonelli's defenders, including psychiatrist Dr. Steven Price, noted that some of Bonelli's writings merely were taken from song lyrics.

BONELLI has said he tried to commit suicide in the hours before the mall shooting but couldn't bring himself to do it. So he decided to open fire at the mall, he said, figuring he'd be killed by police - a practice commonly referred to a "suicide by cop."

Williams said that didn't make sense because there typically are no armed police officers in a shopping mall.

The prosecutor also noted that materials found in Bonelli's home after the shooting indicated he had a "perverse" interest in the 1999 shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Colorado.

Paul Fowler, a family friend, said the sentence was unjust.

"This was a case where the court system failed," Fowler said. "What it failed to do is to look at other aspects of this case."

Silk, who suffered superficial wounds in the shooting spree, said the sentence was correct.

"He got the maximum, and that is just what he deserved," Silk said.

THE 32-YEAR sentence comprises concurrent 25-year terms for two counts of first-degree assault and two counts of criminal use of a firearm, and a seven-year term for one-count of second-degree assault.

Bonelli also was sentenced for several less-serious counts. Those sentences will be included in the 32-year term. Bonelli will be eligible for parole in 26 years.

In entering his plea, Bonelli said that he had gone to the mall with the intention of committing "suicide by cop," hoping to get killed by police officers.

Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams said Bonelli's handwritten notes showed that he'd planned for months to conduct an armed rampage no later than April 20 of last year.

Williams also maintained Bonelli had a lurid fascination with the shootings in Columbine.

"This had nothing to do with skinheads, it had nothing to do with Nazism, it had nothing to do with Columbine," said the uncle, a Lake Katrine resident. "It had to do with something that they don't even know about. ... It didn't drive him to go kill somebody. It drove him to have himself killed by law enforcement. ...

Robert Sr. said his son had Columbine-related materials only because he related to the shooters, who also were outcasts.

"I would not call it a fascination, but it was like a common personality, where they were picked on and ridiculed,".

Dead Rabbit's music often describes violence as a form of protest. From killing preppie students to bombing a popular "yuppie" nightspot in Sacramento, CA, Dead Rabbit promotes the destruction of the "1 percent"; a slang term for the ruling class.

"While we are saddened that innocent people have been hurt by Bonelli, the reason by the shooting must be fully explored. Whether it was a random action or a political statement must be discovered. If he was truly inspired by our music, then neither his aim nor location (of the shooting) should be in doubt."

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said the two were holding onto an arsenal of weapons, as well as information and videos on how to build pipe bombs. It seems police spotted the two men on a videotape found in Bonelli's house. All three were seen making and detonating pipe bombs.

"We may never know specifically what his intentions were, or what his motivations were," Williams said. "However, we are deeply disturbed and troubled by the recovery of Columbine memorabilia from his property."