A key word in the statute is "Maliciously". That doesn't include accidental or inadvertent damage, and requires a determination of intent. A sort of hate crime.In this case he probably didn't have much room to do that as he might have with a drug case where for example he might not mention how many ounces were involved.
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The jury must have been convinced that there was indeed malicious intent to do damage. The stories of the incident that I've seen don't provide an explanation of how the jury came to that conclusion.
I also believe that a failure of the system - a judge making a sentencing mistake - should be corrected within the system and not affect the original sentence. If criminals get lucky, that sucks, but that was the outcome of the system. There should not be double jeopardy for sentencing.