VIRGINIA BEACH -- The teenager who orchestrated a plot to blow up Landstown High School will spend 12 years behind bars for terrorism, weapons and explosives convictions.
Philip Bay spoke in court for the first time before the sentence.
'There's nothing I can say or do that will ever be able to excuse my actions, nothing that can explain what happened,' he said. 'My arrest and coming to jail was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.'
Bay's 2009 planned attack, investigators said, would have been more deadly than the Virginia Tech massacre.
Judge William O'Brien sentenced Bay to 68 years total with all but 12 years suspended. He'll be in juvenile facility until age 21 and then be transferred to prison.
The Commonwealth is disappointed because we had argued against the 'blended sentence' and had asked for 20 years active incarceration at a minimum, said spokeswoman Macie Pridgen.
Bay could have been given a life sentence.
The teen's mother said there was no single motive.
'It was a whole hodgepodge. It's not just one thing that leads to obviously something of this magnitude,' said Lisa Bay. She seemed at ease with the sentence.
'I wanted my son's safety to be in the utmost so he can get therapy. A blended sentence is a godsend.'
