LAS VEGAS – Four Las Vegas teens charged in fatal beating of his schoolmate have agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter in a deal that will prevent them from being tried as adults, lawyers said Thursday.
The teens were originally charged in January as adults with second-degree murder and conspiracy in the November death of 17-year-old Jonathan Lewis Jr..
The deal was announced during a hearing Thursday before Clark County District Judge Tierra Jones, who asks that the four be sent to juvenile court and face an indefinite prison sentence in a juvenile detention center. The deal was first reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
If any of the teens back out of the deal, the four will be charged again in adult court, said Deputy District Attorney John Giordani.
“The offer depends on everyone’s acceptance,” said Giordani.
The Associated Press is not naming the students because they were minors at the time of the Nov. 1, 2023 attack.
The four were among nine teenagers arrested in Lewis’ death. Lewis was attacked on Nov. 1 near the campus of Rancho High School, where he was all a student. Authorities said the students agreed to meet in the alley to fight over a vape pen and wireless earbuds which was stolen from Lewis’s friend. Lewis died from his injuries six days later.
Defense attorney Robert Draskovich, representing one of the four defendants, called the deadly fight a tragedy but said convicting the four students of murder as adults would have been a second tragedy.
“This negotiation allows my client to graduate from high school, move on with his life and become a productive citizen,” Draskovich told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The lawyer said he will ask at sentencing that his client be released from custody with credit for time already served. Draskovich acknowledged that his client was among those who kicked Lewis while he was on the ground, but said a jury would also have seen video showing that at least one of the people in the group with Lewis had a knife.
Melissa Ready, Lewis’ mother, told KLAS-TV in Las Vegas on Thursday that she was “flabbergasted” by the plea agreement. She said she heard from the Clark County district attorney’s office that the teens would plead guilty to murder in the adult court system.
Giordani declined to comment after Thursday’s hearing but provided the AP with a statement from Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson’s office. She acknowledged Lewis’ mother’s comments and “the pain (she) is going through as she mourns the loss of her son.” But she said she was informed last week of the terms of the negotiations.
Wolfson’s office defended the resolution of the case as a balance between “careful consideration of the egregious facts” and potential legal challenges that prosecutors would have faced at trial.
The statement states that juvenile court is “better equipped to punish defendants for their heinous conduct” while also providing rehabilitation.
In Nevada, a teenager faces a murder charge can be charged as an adult if they were 13 or older when the crime occurred.
A homicide detective who investigated the case told a grand jury last year that cellphone and surveillance video showed Lewis taking off his red sweatshirt and punching one of the students, according to court transcripts released in January. The suspects then pulled Lewis to the ground and began punching, kicking and stomping him, the detective said.
A student and an area resident carried Lewis, who was beaten unconscious, back to campus after the fight, according to transcripts. School officials called 911 and tried to help him.
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Sonner reported from Reno, Nevada
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