A Lancaster County judge sentenced a city man to 8 to 20 years in state prison yesterday after a jury found him guilty of shooting a bystander to death during an argument outside a party.

Judge Dennis Reinaker handed down the sentence to Steffen Vadoria Tidwell Jr., of the 600 block of North Queen Street.

A jury had found Tidwell guilty in October of voluntary manslaughter and a summary charge of discharging a firearm for shooting and killing 26-year-old Jomar Almestica outside a party in the 600 block of Hebrank Street in Lancaster city the night of Aug. 20, 2021.

“There’s no reason why this should have happened,” said Assistant District Attorney Jessica Collo, who prosecuted the case.

Though the evening had begun as a family barbecue, it turned into a scene of death when, in the midst of a tense argument, Tidwell, 31, retrieved handgun from his car, pointed it at Almestica and fired five times – an act that Collo called “senseless.”

“He escalated the situation,” Collo argued. “There’s no doubt of that.”

In a letter to the court that Collo read aloud at the sentencing, Almestica’s mother described the “great pain and emptiness” in her heart caused by her son’s death.

Almestica, his mother wrote, was “a good, humble and simple boy” who loved fishing and giving gifts to his children.

Now, Almestica’s mother said, his children are left to grow up without a father.

Another one of Almestica’s family members described him as a man “who brought joy into people’s lives.”

“He was a son who cared,” Almestica’s family member told the court. “He was a father who mattered.”

When given the chance to speak before his sentencing Tidwell apologized to Almestica’s family, asked for their forgiveness and said he was ready to be held accountable for his actions. At one point Tidwell apologized directly to Almestica’s mother for killing her son, who he described as “a precious life.”

While saying he was “in no way proud” of his actions, Tidwell claimed he had changed for the better during the four and a half years in jail that he spent while awaiting the resolution of this case and said he would rehabilitate himself into a better person by the conclusion of his sentence.

But Collo countered that, regardless of whether he has truly changed, he would never have been behind bars had he not shot Almestica.

“What is justice if the price of one man’s progress is another man’s life?” Collo told the court.

Collo cited Tidwell’s lengthy criminal history, including convictions for violent crimes and felony firearms offenses, and questioned why he had not rehabilitated after serving those sentences.

Almestica was on the front steps of a nearby residence uninvolved in the argument when Tidwell shot him shortly after 10 p.m. Almestica was taken to a nearby hospital where he died a little over an hour later.

In addition to the prison time, Tidwell must also pay more than $8,000 in restitution.

Lancaster City Bureau of Police Officer Austin Krause filed the charges.