By Scott Sonner and Ken Ritter
Four Las Vegas teenagers accused in the fatal beating of their high school classmate have agreed to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter in a deal that will keep them from being tried as adults, lawyers said Thursday.
The teens originally were charged in January as adults with second-degree murder and conspiracy in the November death of 17-year-old Jonathan Lewis Jr. Cellphone video of the fatal beating was shared across social media.
The deal announced during a hearing Thursday before Clark County District Judge Tierra Jones calls for the four to be sent to juvenile court and face an undetermined length of imprisonment in a juvenile detention center. The deal was first reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Should any of the teens back out of the deal, then all four would again be charged in adult court, Chief Deputy District Attorney John Giordani said.
“The offer is contingent on everyone’s acceptance,” Giordani said.
The Associated Press is not naming the students because they were juveniles at the time of the Nov. 1, 2023, attack.
The four were among nine teenagers who were arrested in Lewis’ death. Lewis was attacked on Nov. 1 just off the campus of Rancho High School where all were students. Authorities have said the students agreed to meet in the alley to fight over a vape pen and wireless headphones that had been stolen from Lewis’ friend. Lewis died from his injuries six days later.
Defense lawyer 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 enables my client to graduate high school, move on with his life and become a productive citizen,” Draskovich told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The attorney said he’ll ask at sentencing for his client to 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 also would have seen video showing at least one of the people in a group with Lewis had a knife.
Mellisa Ready, Lewis’ mother, told KLAS-TV in Las Vegas on Thursday that she was “dumbfounded” by the plea agreement. She said that she had heard from the Clark County district attorney’s office that the teens were going to plead guilty to murder in the adult court system.
Giordani declined to comment after the hearing Thursday but provided a statement to AP from Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson’s office. It acknowledged Lewis’ mother’s comments and “the pain (she) is going through as she mourns the loss of her son.” But it said she had been informed last week about the terms of the negotiations.
Wolfson’s office defended the resolution of the case as a balance of “thoughtful consideration of the egregious facts” and potential legal challenges that prosecutors would have faced at trial.
The statement said juvenile court is “best equipped to punish the defendants for their heinous conduct” while also offering rehabilitation.
In Nevada, a teenager facing 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 throwing a punch at one of the students, according to court transcripts made public in January. The suspects then pulled Lewis to the ground and began punching, kicking and stomping on him, the detective said.
A student and a resident in the area carried Lewis, who was badly beaten and unconscious, back to campus after the fight, according to the transcripts. School staff called 911 and tried to help him.
