ATLANTA (AP) — A jury found a 19-year-old man guilty in the baseball bat beating of a fellow Morehouse College student in a dorm shower, but acquitted him of violating Georgia’s new hate crime law.

Aaron Price was sentenced to 10 years in prison for aggravated battery and aggravated assault after the jury deliberated more than two hours. However, the jury did not find sufficient evidence to call the assault a hate crime, which would have added up to another five years to his sentence.

Prosecutors said they were still satisfied with the jury’s decision, adding that the sentence was much stiffer than they expected.

“The important thing that happened was he was convicted of aggravated assault and aggravated battery,” Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said. “The judge was trying to send a message ... you can’t get involved in this kind of conduct.”

Georgia’s hate crime law, passed in July 2000, is a two-part statute that first requires a conviction in initial charges before alleging that the defendant’s actions were motivated by bias or prejudice. The bill was drafted by state Sen. Vincent Fort, a Democrat from Atlanta.

“I think prosecution dealt with (the law) well but the jury didn’t,” Fort said, adding that the next hate crime trial will be in the case of three white men assaulting two black men in Atlanta.

Howard said this two-part system seemed to wear out the jury, and may have affected their decision.

Price hit student Gregory Love in a dormitory bathroom last November after Love looked at him over a shower curtain. Love, who said he is not gay, has said he only looked at Price because he didn’t have his glasses on and mistook Price for his roommate.

During his testimony earlier in the week, Love maintained that Price called him gay epithets while beating him with the bat.

“It’s time Mr. Price learned a lesson that you can’t judge a book by its cover,” said Holly Hughes, an assistant district attorney who addressed the jury during the hate crime phase of the trial.

Price claimed he was acting in self-defense because Love threatened to hurt him before he left the shower to get his bat.

“Both boys were wrong and two wrongs don’t make a right,” the Rev. Jerome Price, the defendant’s father, told Superior Court Judge Jerry W. Baxter before sentencing.

But Baxter said he didn’t feel that Price and his family had made strong efforts to apologize to the Love family.

“What I’ve listened to is the victim being put on trial for three days,” he said.

Love declined to comment on the case outside of the trial, but he did address the court before Price was sentenced.

“I would like Mr. Price to know that as a fellow Christian I forgive him,” he said. “It’s not easy, but I will be strong and I will be OK.”

Price made a brief apology to the family before he was sentenced. Under state law, he will have to serve at least nine years of his sentence before being eligible for parole. His attorney, Tony Axam, said there will be an appeal.

The beating evoked strong emotions at the historically black college, where some gay students said homophobia is rampant. The incident also prompted administrators to set up discussion sessions promoting diversity and acceptance of people of different sexual orientations.