A man who stabbed another man to death after an argument at a casino poker table has been sentenced to five years in prison.

According to media reports, Vicente Perez, 56, of Macon, Georgia, USA, originally from Cuba, received the sentence Friday, in connection with an incident last April 6 at the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA.

In that incident, Perez and another man, Arthur Prince, 61, of Toms River, New Jersey, USA, had an argument while playing poker in the casino’s poker room, media reports said.

The confrontation continued in the casino parking lot, where Prince struck Perez with a cane and then Perez pulled out a knife and stabbed Prince to death, media reports said.

Perez pleaded guilty in May to one charge of reckless manslaughter, media reports said.

“I didn’t mean to do what I did,”=9D Perez, a truck driver, told the judge Friday before sentencing was handed down. “I’m very sorry for what happened.”

According to media reports, prosecutor Murray Talasnik, who represented the State of New Jersey in the case, said that Perez brought a deadly weapon–a knife with a 10-inch blade–into the casino and that is what kept the case from being one of self-defense.

“Prince had already dropped the cane when Perez stabbed him four times,” Talasnik said. “It has become all too common for people to solve their problems by resorting to violence. A message needs to be sent.

“If you’re not going to learn it at home and you’re not going to learn it at church, you’re going to learn it in the courtroom.”

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.) =A0