GRAND HAVEN, MI -- Tears and weeping permeated an Ottawa County courtroom’s gallery as a judge sentenced a man to prison for shooting a rifle through a home’s floor, accidentally killing a friend below.

Westen Meulenberg, 20, was sentenced to a minimum 70 months prison for the death of Connor Lotterman, a 19-year-old Grand Valley State University engineering student.

Lotterman was fatally wounded at a May 9 party at a house and barn in the 10700 block of Second Avenue in Tallmadge Township.

Meulenberg had been drinking and was with two other people in an upstairs bedroom when he fired seven shots into the floor with a rifle.

He didn’t know Lotterman was in a room below.

Lotterman’s father, Steve Lotterman, told the judge the death “wasn’t an accident. It involved many deliberate fooli

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