A 20-year-old Albany man is convicted of a fatal knife attack in Sing Sing in 1995

WHITE PLAINS – An Albany man was sentenced Thursday in Westchester County Court to 20 years in state prison for fatally stabbing a 32-year-old man in 1995 while both were incarcerated at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining.

After a five-week trial, a jury in May convicted 54-year-old Allah-Son-Allah of involuntary manslaughter of 32-year-old inmate Michael Jones on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1995.

The investigation, begun in 1995 and revived in 2019 by state police and the Westchester District Attorney’s Office, revealed that Allah and Jones were allegedly members of the Five Percent Nation, also known as the Nation of Gods and Earth, a breakaway group from the Nation of Islam in the 1960s founded years ago.

As detailed in the trial, the day before the stabbing, members of the Five Percent Nation voted to attack Jones after he violated the group’s beliefs by wearing a cross.

Co-defendant Steven Smith, 60, of Salisbury, North Carolina, who was also incarcerated with Jones at Sing Sing and involved in the incident, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and is awaiting sentencing.