A reclusive millionaire convicted in the fiery death of a man he had hired to excavate a secret bomb shelter under his Maryland home moved closer to being released from prison Tuesday after a judge shaved four years from his sentence.
The new sentence came after both of Maryland’s appeals courts tossed the more serious conviction of second-degree, “depraved heart” murder against Daniel Beckwitt but let a count of involuntary manslaughter stand.
“The court thinks that a reduction in the sentence is warranted given a reversal of the lead count,” Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Margaret Schweitzer said from the bench Tuesday in a hearing for the 30-year-old Bethesda man. “I don’t know how I could otherwise conclude.”
Beckwitt’s case, labeled as “bizarre” by the Maryland Court of Appeals, stemmed from what began at least eight years ago as paranoia about advancements in the North Korean nuclear missile program.
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Beckwitt, a gifted computer programmer described in court hearings as brilliant, started the bomb shelter himself by smashing a hole in his basem*nt floor. He kept the project a secret, even as he started hiring workers occasionally, because he feared that common knowledge of the shelter would cause it to be overrun in the event of nuclear war, according to trial testimony. For years, a warren of tunnels stocked with food quietly spread under his home along a tranquil, leafy street outside the nation’s capital and near the National Institutes of Health.
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The construction project — carried out by people with little to no excavation experience — turned deadly and public on Sept. 10, 2017. His most recent employee — Askia Khafra, 21 — was in the tunnels when a fire broke out in the basem*nt above him, according to trial evidence. Khafra scrambled up to the basem*nt to escape, but he couldn’t make it through debilitating smoke and hoarded clutter in the basem*nt. He was burned beyond recognition just steps from making it out.
“It was, by all accounts, a terrible way to die,” Schweitzer said.
The change in Beckwitt’s convicted status will play a crucial factor in his possibility for parole. Under Maryland rules, inmates are generally eligible for parole consideration after serving half of their sentence for crimes of violence and a quarter of their sentence for crimes classified as nonviolent. Beckwitt’s murder count was considered a crime of violence, but the manslaughter count is not.
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Because he is now eligible for parole consideration, though, does not mean it will be granted. Separately, Beckwitt could soon be automatically released from prison for good-behavior credits he has accumulated in what has thus far been an infraction-free stay behind bars.
“We expect his release in the very near future,” said Robert Bonsib, one of Beckwitt’s attorneys.
Beckwitt originally was sentenced to nine years.
The erosion of the case against Beckwitt has been devastating for Khafra’s family, his father, Dia Khafra, said in court Tuesday.
“This conviction reversal has created an additional layer of unmitigated pain and suffering to our emotional, psychological and spiritual well-being,” Khafra said. “We feel as if we have been stabbed with a knife of victimization all over again.”
After the hearing, Dia Khafra said the prospect of Beckwitt leaving prison soon is upsetting.
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“I think he’s a dangerous person,” Khafra said. “I don’t think he can change. I wish he could, but I don’t think he can.”
Maryland man gets nine years in death of worker building secret bomb shelter
Beckwitt spoke in court for 11 minutes, reading from notes on loose yellow sheets of paper. Much of his presentation addressed the difficulties of prison life and “dissenting legal analysis” he wanted to present about the recent appeals decisions to let stand his manslaughter conviction. On that latter point, Beckwitt spoke of a “departure from mainstream regulatory jurisprudence by the Court of Appeals” and “the substantive due process right to fair notice under the Fifth Amendment.”
He also spoke about Askia Khafra’s tragic death and the Khafra family’s deep mourning.
“If serving a century in maximum security could somehow bring back Askia, I would of course gladly do that,” Beckwitt said.
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As the case developed, Beckwitt emerged as a character as unique as his secret project. He grew up as an only child who was home-schooled in the same house as the fire. His mom was a Securities and Exchange Commission attorney who had gone to Columbia Law School. His dad, an opera performer with a PhD, gave voice lessons. By age 5, he was plowing through Hardy Boys mysteries, and by 11, reprogramming his PlayStation, according to court records.
He went to youth science programs, learned how to build robots, and was accepted to one of the nation’s premier computer science and electrical engineering schools at the University of Illinois. He got in trouble there — he was convicted in a computer hacking case — and returned home, eventually living by himself in his boyhood home.
Beckwitt accumulated wealth from a sizable inheritance and skilled investing. After meeting Askia Khafra online, he decided to invest in Khafra’s start-up venture, Equity Shark, a smartphone app to allow small investors to pool money into promising new companies. That relationship led to Beckwitt hiring Khafra to dig his tunnels.
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Beckwitt took extreme secrecy measures, picking Khafra up, telling him to put on glasses that blocked his vision, and purporting to drive to Virginia. Instead, Beckwitt drove around in big circles, ending up at his home. He led Khafra into his home by a key lanyard before allowing him to take the glasses off.
Khafra would work and sleep in the tunnels for days on end. Power was supplied for digging tools by multiple extension cords and power strips. Khafra was instructed not to leave the tunnels or the basem*nt.
After the fatal fire, which was caused by an accidental electrical outlet malfunction, investigators searching through the rubble discovered the tunnels. Beckwitt was evasive in his answers, raising suspicions. Police eventually charged him with depraved heart murder. Under that charge, it was not alleged that Beckwitt set out to kill Khafra; it was that the working conditions constituted conduct that was reasonably likely, if not certain, to cause death. A Montgomery County jury agreed and convicted him of the count in 2019.
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But two appellate courts in Maryland saw otherwise.
“His conduct, although demonstrating a wanton and reckless disregard for human life, was not the kind of conduct that was likely, if not certain, to have caused death,” the state’s Court of Appeals said in an opinion filed Jan. 28.
Schweitzer, the Montgomery County judge, put it this way on Tuesday: “This was not an intentional act. Mr. Beckwitt did not intend the consequences in this case.”
Repeating a theme she delivered at her original sentencing, though, she told Beckwitt he suffered from an “intellectual arrogance” that everything would work out as he planned, including the notion that a home-designed bomb shelter could be safely tunneled out below his home.
“I really do think that there is some lack of empathy or intellectual arrogance or a disconnect that you have — a little bit of self-absorption,” the judge said.
