Arsonist Antun Lewis, 30, was sentenced to 35 years in federal prison after being twice convicted for setting a house fire that killed nine people, including a woman and eight children.

The fire killed 33-year-old Medeia Carter, four of her children and four other youngsters attending a birthday sleepover on May 21, 2005. It was the deadliest fire in the city’s history. The prosecutors and the the victims’ families asked for life in prison.

During the trial, Lewis pleaded with the judge in U.S. District Court in Cleveland for mercy and expressed condolences to the families of the victims.

He said someone committed the crime, “but it’s a lie that person was me.“ Lewis said he was at home, several blocks away, when the fire started. His attorneys have said that there was no drug debt and that he passed two polygraph tests.

Lewis, a convicted drug dealer, was deemed ineligible for the death penalty because of a mental disability. His attorneys presented evidence he has an IQ of 70 or less.

Carter’s mother, Evelyn Martin, spoke at the hearing and recounted the horrific events of that late night and early morning. Six of the eight children who died were Martin’s grandchildren.

Judge Solomon Oliver said he had trouble believing Lewis set the fire over a drug debt, calling the case the toughest he has heard in 20 years on the federal bench. He said he considered various factors, including the public’s safety and Lewis’ disabilities, in deciding on Lewis’ sentence.

The judge presided over Lewis’ first trial, in early 2011. While a jury convicted Lewis of a count of arson, the judge overturned the veridict due to unreliability of jailhouse informants who testified against him. The 6th U.S. District Court of Appeals upheld the judge’s ruling in February 2012 and ordered that Lewis be given a new trial.

Prosecutors used some of the original witnesses during the second trial in December 2013, and a jury returned another guilty verdict. Lewis testified in his own defense at the second trial.