David Yokoyama apologized at his sentencing hearing Wednesday before 2nd Circuit Judge Joel August for hurting others by his actions. He said he now realizes "that methamphetamine kills and hurts people."

"I'm not blaming anyone for my problems," he said. "I need help to stop gambling. I hurt others just to help me."

Yokoyama was arrested May 30, 2006, when police executed search warrants for his truck and residence.

After finding several grams of methamphetamine in the truck and $1,000 cash in his pocket, police searched Yokoyama's residence, seizing more than 1 ounce of methamphetamine and two rifles in a bathroom closet, said Deputy Prosecutor Timothy Tate.

"There's no doubt the defendant was involved in trafficking a very large amount of ice," Tate said. "I don't think he realized this drug is a deadly poison and it destroys lives."

Yokoyama had pleaded no contest to first-degree promotion of a dangerous drug, possessing drug paraphernalia and two counts of failing to acquire a firearm permit. The prosecution dismissed a more serious methamphetamine trafficking charge and Yokoyama agreed not to seek probation in the case.

While Tate recommended a 20-year prison term for the first-degree drug charge, defense attorney David Sereno asked that Yokoyama be sentenced as a young adult defendant qualified for an eight-year term.

"It's a little bit of an unusual case," Sereno said. "It's not a drug user using. It's a gambler trying to pay off debt. We're not talking a little office pool. The more he gambled, the more he wanted to gamble."

With family members and friends in the courtroom gallery, Yokoyama said his parents didn't know about his gambling, which started "at an early age."

When he got into debt, someone suggested selling methamphetamine to get money.

"The problem is I didn't pay off the debt. I kept gambling and losing," he said.

Because of what he did, Yokoyama said his parents almost lost the house that he and his father had built. Tate said the cycle of drug dealing and gambling stopped only when Yokoyama was arrested.

Sereno said the guns that police seized belonged to Yokoyama's father and weren't related to the drugs.

Yokoyama was still driving his father's truck and didn't have lavish belongings, Sereno said.

"He literally was engulfed in an addiction," Sereno said. "While different from drug addiction, it's the same type of powerful hold it has on anybody and he was doing all he could to stay afloat."

In sentencing Yokoyama as a young adult offender, August recommended that the defendant not be housed with career criminals. Yokoyama has no prior criminal record and was attending college when he was arrested, August said.

"To say this case is a disturbing one is to make an understatement," August said. "I think we all believe that providing a loving and safe environment will assure that our children who come from that environment will choose the right path. It doesn't always happen.

"This is really a life that is interrupted, not ended. It is a life which is, perhaps, derailed but certainly not destroyed."