All Naromi Mannery had to do to prevent his death was leave private property when he was asked, Arthur Manning told a Kane County judge.

Manning, 58, was sentenced Thursday to 29 years in state prison for fatally stabbing Mannery during a fight Sept. 21 outside a home at 920 W. Main St., St. Charles.

Before handing down the sentence, Circuit Judge Timothy Sheldon called Mannery’s death a “senseless taking of an innocent life.”

Mannery, 28, was drinking beer with Darren Barnett at a house on Main Street the night he died.

The men then went to the side yard at 920 W. Main, where Barnett lived with Manning, Willie Wimberly and Manning’s brother, Guy. The four men were all carnival workers with Windy City Amusements Inc., which owns the house.

They asked Mannery to leave because their landlord did not allow nonresidents to be at the house.

When Mannery refused, Wimberly punched him, sparking the fight that led to Mannery’s death, authorities said. Arthur Manning stabbed Mannery in the back three times.

“Mr. Mannery was an intoxicated person who simply appeared to have wanted some conversation and companionship,” Sheldon said. “He was just a harmless drunk who ended up being knifed for no reason.”

Manning, a former jockey with a long criminal history that includes stints in Louisiana prisons for armed robbery and distributing heroin, apologized to Mannery’s family in a statement to the court, but blamed him for the fight that led to his death.

“The reason the altercation started was he was intoxicated and on private property,” Manning said, remaining seated at the defense table and reading from a prepared statement. “He was asked to leave, but instead of getting up to leave, he said ... he wasn’t going anywhere.”

After being stabbed, Mannery stumbled to the south side of Main and collapsed on the sidewalk. Officers found him unresponsive when they arrived just before midnight.

Paramedics treated Mannery and took him to Delnor-Community Hospital, where he was pronounced dead a few hours later.

During his February trial, Manning testified that he acted in self-defense.

Prior to the sentencing, his attorney, David Kliment, asked Sheldon to grant a new trial, arguing that jurors were not given proper instructions regarding a claim of self-defense. The judge denied the motion.

Assistant State’s Attorney Mark Stajdohar asked Sheldon for the 29-year sentence.

“(Manning) still hasn’t taken full responsibility for what he did,” Stajdohar said. “He escalated this argument to the point where he took another man’s life.”

Manning soon will be handed over to federal authorities to face charges of conspiracy to commit bank fraud in the Western District of Tennessee. He was out on bond for those charges at the time of Mannery’s murder.