Courtesy Photo Chester Stone

Stone, 44, of Frederick , could have been sentenced to 15 years for being an accessory after the fact to witness tampering in the July 2005 slaying of David Wayne Lee Jr.

Stone is the third of five defendants to be convicted of crimes prosecuted as the result of Lee's death.

Whether Stone will be required to testify against the two remaining defendants remained unclear Tuesday.

"We'll cross that bridge if we ever have to get to it," Martin H. Schreiber II, Stone's attorney, said after his client was sentenced by Judge J. Frederick Motz.

Stone's son, Steven Stone, and his co-conspirator Randall Hildebrand still face prosecution in Lee's death.

Lee, 20, was killed late July 7, 2005, near Hildebrand's Reichs Ford Road residence, about two weeks before he was court-ordered to testify in a federal drug and weapons investigation involving Steven Stone and his associates, court documents state.

At sentencing Tuesday, Chester Stone "apologized for the loss David Lee's family has endured," Schreiber said.

"He reiterated that what he did was really out of love for his own child, which made matters especially poignant," Schreiber said.

Chester Stone had not been aware a murder plot had been hatched, the lawyer said. He knew nothing of the shooting until he was asked by Hildebrand to dispose of the gun.

"We killed David," Hildebrand told Chester Stone early July 8, 2005, when he told him to get rid of the gun, according to court documents.

The gun has not been found, Schreiber said.

Tuesday evening, Jodie Eichelberger, Lee's eldest sister, spoke on behalf of her family after learning of Chester Stone's "extremely lenient sentence."

U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein "is a joke. His claims that he will be tough on those who commit witness tampering are a crock," she said.

"He has sent the wrong message with the deals that have been made in the cases that they have prosecuted thus far," she said. "We are in fear now of what will happen with the remaining two defendants."

Chester Stone has been detained since Nov. 16, 2007, on charges related to Lee's slaying; the time he has served goes toward his five-year, three-month prison sentence, Schreiber said.

In June, Jesse Dorsz, 28, of Walkersville , accepted a plea agreement that will keep him behind bars for 15 to 171Ú2 years.

Dorsz pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and the use of a handgun in the furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on the drug conspiracy offense and life for the gun offense.

No sentencing date has been set.

On Aug. 31, Motz ordered Eric Lee Campbell, 20, of Gaithersburg, to spend 11 years and three months in prison for conspiracy to commit witness tampering by homicide.