ALBANY COUNTY — Jason Seminary of Guilderland was sentenced to two to four years in state prison Tuesday morning, having pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide as part of a plea deal following the death of Kentish Bennett.

Seminary was 43 when he was arrested on Dec. 26, 2021 for second-degree manslaughter, which would have come with a sentence of up to 15 years.

Bennett was 41 when he died on Dec. 23, 2021. He was well known locally as a musician and drag performer.

At the time of Bennett’s death, the mother of his two children, Anika Jordan-Alexis, described Bennett as talented, lovely, and gentle. “He was too kind of a person to die that way,” she told The Enterprise.

Bennett had lived at 3771 Western Turnpike, a farm in Guilderland, with John L. “Jack” Seminary, Jason’s father.

The only information Guilderland Police released after Bennett’s death was that the manslaughter charge stemmed from “a domestic incident involving a physical argument, which took place at about 1:45 p.m. on Dec. 23 at 3771 Western Turnpike.”

A bit more information was embedded in the annual report Guilderland Police released for 2021, which said the department “received an emergency medical call for an intoxicated male that fell and hit his head. The male died at the hospital and, after an autopsy, his death was ruled a homicide.”

In June 2022, after the annual report was released, The Enterprise asked Guilderland Police Chief Daniel McNally why the charge was manslaughter instead of murder. McNally said that, while he couldn’t discuss a specific case, “Manslaughter versus murder [is] … basically recklessly versus intentionally.”

At Tuesday’s sentencing, Michael A. Feit, Seminary’s lawyer, asserted the court report was “riddled with mischaracterizations of certain events” and also said the pronouns didn’t correspond to the people involved yet he made no application for amendments, deletions, or omissions.

Seminary answered “yes sir” when County Court Judge William T. Little asked if he had been convicted of a violent felony for a 2009 burglary and served a sentence of four years.

In the spring of 2009, The Enterprise reported at the time, Seminary, then 31 and an unemployed contractor, was arrested with a nightclub entertainer for five felonies: robbery, burglary, assault, grand larceny, and conspiracy, accused of breaking into a Knox home.

“Once inside, Seminary attacked the homeowner by wrapping a belt around his neck and then knocked him to the floor, where he punched him about the head and face,” said the Albany County Sheriff’s Office at the time. “There was a second male occupant in the home, whom he ordered to the floor, saying that he had a gun and would use it if he got up from the floor. Seminary ordered the second male to turn over his wallet, which Seminary ultimately stole.”

Ariel J. Fallon, an Albany County assistant district attorney, said there were two victim-impact statements made as part of the pre-sentencing investigation. She did not read them in the courtroom on Tuesday.

Darrell Camp, spokesman for the district attorney’s office, told The Enterprise the statements “are a part of a sealed document, so we can’t send them to you.”

Asked on Tuesday why his office agreed to a plea deal for criminally negligent homicide, with a sentence of 2 to 4 years, rather than the original charge of manslaughter with a sentence up to 15 years, Camp responded, “I’d have to get back to you on that.”

No one, other than The Enterprise, was in the gallery of the courtroom on Tuesday for Seminary’s sentencing

Seminary’s view

Feit said he had known Seminary’s family since he coached his brother in soccer at age 6.

When Jason Seminary was growing up in Guilderland, Feit said he was taunted by suburban kids at school because he lived on a farm.

Later, Seminary joined the United States Marines, Feit said, and told his lawyer, “There was a culture of violence.”

Seminary was discharged from the Marines with a “certain form of mental illness” that Feit believes was related to post-traumatic stress disorder, he said.

Seminary had “done a lot of things he wished he hadn’t done,” Feit said, but asserted there is “another side of Jason.”

Feit said that Kentish Bennett “had been the paramour … of Jason’s father for 14 years” and that Jason Seminary “could not have foreseen” what happened on Dec. 23, 2021.

He claimed that Jason Seminary had, in the past, been “physically attacked” by Bennett and said that on the day of the homicide Bennett had a knife, which Jason Seminary and his father took away.

Jason Seminary, he said, was “really trying to defend himself” when he came “crashing down” on Bennett whom Feit said had medical issues like cirrhosis of the liver.

“Jason was the one who called 9-1-1 … He wanted to get medical help,” said Feit.

As his lawyer spoke, Seminary, wearing an orange jail jumpsuit and Nike sneakers, clasped his hands, which were cuffed at the wrists, and bent his head over them.

When it was his turn to speak, Seminary looked up at Judge Little and said, “All I can say at this point … is that I’m sorry.”

Seminary said he was sorry for Bennett’s family and sorry for his father whom he said “has a broken heart.”

He said he had spent a lot of time with Bennett at the farm and that he and Bennett were the same age.

“I’m not a monster although I get painted like a monster … ,” said Seminary as he cried. “I do have remorse … I never set out to be a criminal … I never meant to hurt Kentish … What happened was an accident.”

Seminary went on, “I was just trying to stop him … I’m 280 pounds.”

Through sobs, he said, “I don’t know what’s gonna happen to me.” He went on about Bennett, “He had his problems but he was a good person … and I never meant to hurt him.”

Assistant District Attorney Fallon responded that some of Feit’s statements were unfair. She said there are far more reports of the police being called on the Seminary men for harm to Bennett than there are for Bennett harming the Seminary men.

While there were ongoing issues of violence in general, Fallon said, violence was primarily directed at Bennett.

The Enterprise filed Freedom of Information Law requests with the Guilderland Police for reports of calls from the Seminary home just after Bennett’s death, in December 2021, and then again after Seminary had pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide in November 2022.

The requests were denied because “the case remains open.” The Enterprise filed another request on April 18 after the sentencing.

Judge Little sentenced Seminary to two to four years in state prison to be served consecutively with a federal sentence.

The federal charge stems from Seminary’s arrest on Dec. 26, 2021, three days after Bennett’s death, when he was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

In the Albany County courtroom on Tuesday morning, Seminary waived his right to appeal.

“Good luck, Mr. Seminary,” said the judge as Seminary was led away.

A view of Bennett

Jordan-Alexis told The Enterprise the week that Bennett died that she had been worried something like that might happen.

Theirs was an unexpected romance. He was from Jamaica. She was from Trinidad and Tobago. They met coincidentally in 2002, she said.

She told with joy and gusto the story of their meeting.

“I was coming off a train and he was on the same train and I was walking up the stairs and, you know, he saw me, a tall dark-skinned girl.”

“Why are you looking at me?” she asked him.

“Because I find you attractive,” he replied. “You are so beautiful.”

“That was the ice-breaker,” Jordan-Alexis said.

He told her he had never had a girlfriend and she asked if he was gay. He laughed and said he didn’t use labels. She was modeling at the time and he was starting out as a songwriter and actor, she said.

“The friendship blossomed into more,” said Jordan-Alexis.

Their daughter, Arissa Jordan-Bennett, was born in 2003. Their son, Averie Jordan, was born in 2008.

Bennett was multi-talented, Jordan-Alexis said; he used to do her hair and he also designed clothes and home decor.

For his music, which included rap, reggae, and rhythm and blues, Bennett used the name K.Swiff. Bennett’s drag name was Kayla Shennett.

“He tried out for America’s Got Talent and he didn’t make it,” said Jordan-Alexis. “He said they weren’t ready for him. So he decided to try his own thing and it was going good but … he wasn’t getting the financial support to push the production.”

Bennett was bisexual, Jordan-Alexis said. “I was never the person to control him. I told him: Be free with who you want but, if you’re with me, I’m greedy — I want you all to myself.”

She would tell him, “Be true to yourself … Be true to who you are. But I don’t want to be in the middle because you know where I stand. If you’re with me, I want you all. And that’s it.”

“He was so talented,” she said, “but I gave him his freedom to choose and to be who he is …. Even though we had our lives, he could always call me.”

She believes Seminary was abusive towards Bennett. Bennett was cut off from his children, she said.

She said Bennett would get up early in the mornings to go to the barn to feed the animals and talk to her then “so nobody would know,” she said. “The stuff he confided in me is really disturbing.”

Bennett was frequently beaten, she claimed, and would have “black and blue eyes.”

The day before Bennett died, Jordan-Alexis talked to him, she said, and their son talked to Bennett for hours on that Wednesday, Dec. 22.

Bennett was packing up because he was going to move on Friday, Dec. 24, 2021 she said. “He finally got his own place …,” she said of Bennett. “He showed my son the room pictures and stuff.” Their son had hopes of “coming up to live with his dad,” she said.

Bennett’s entire family was devastated by his death, said Jordan-Alexis. “He was the life of his family,” she said.

She described Bennett as a gentle person. “You will never find somebody saying he was aggressive to them. I was the aggressor in our relationship.”

She went on, describing Bennett’s personality: “He was outgoing … When he was there, everybody had to be happy. You couldn’t be sulking when he was around because he would have made sure that you had a smile on your face, no matter how sad he was on the inside.”

She also said, “He was an inspiration to people in the community … to be free.”

Jordan-Alexis concluded, “He didn’t deserve this … We lost a good one. We lost a talented one. We lost out on this one. That’s what I keep saying: We lost that undiscovered one because … the world wasn’t ready for him.”