The mother of the Las Vegas teen beaten to death by a gang of bullies last year furiously called out the county’s district attorney for allowing her son’s alleged killers to “get away with murder” after it was ruled they would no longer face prosecution as adults.
Mellisa Ready was horrified when she found out the Clark County District Attorney accepted a plea deal on Thursday that would ensure the four teens charged with the death of her son, Jonathan Lewis, would avoid being locked up in an adult prison, 8 News Now reported, citing court documents.
“There is no justice for my son Jonathan Lewis, that was stomped to death and murdered while 20 people stood there and did nothing more than film it and broadcast it to social media,” Ready told the outlet.
Lewis’ alleged killers — Damien Hernandez, Dontral Beaver, Gianni Robinson, and Treavion Randolph — were all under 18 when they were formally charged with second-degree murder in connection to the 17-year-old’s death.
However, the plea deal will allow all four teens to plead guilty as juveniles to manslaughter.
“We were able to evaluate all the evidence as a whole and reach this mutually beneficial negotiation,” the attorney for Gianni Robinson, Robert Draskovich, told 8 News Now.
“Obviously, what occurred is a tragedy, but convicting these young men of murder would be a second tragedy, following the first.”
Lewis, a Rancho High School student, was brutally beaten by a mob of his peers in an alley near his school on Nov. 1. He died from blunt force trauma in the hospital six days later.
Lewis was attacked when he allegedly got into a fight over a set of wireless headphones, which were stolen from one of his friends, but then was pounced on by multiple teens.
The tragedy was caught on multiple cell phone videos, with police calling the viral attack “very void of humanity.”
The four teens had previously claimed self-defense after they were arrested, saying that Lewis had thrown the first punch.
“You cannot jump in a human being’s head, stomp on him, and think that they’re going to remain alive after,” the heartbroken mother told the outlet.
“They knew he was going to die, and that’s how I feel – and they’re letting them get away with murder.”
The mother said she was blindsided by the announcement and wasn’t notified of Thursday’s hearing.
“I was told that they were going to plea guilty to murder and that the most they would get in the adult system is two years,” Ready told the outlet.
Lewis’s mother said she “would’ve disagreed with the deal entirely” if she had been made aware, and still firmly believes they should be held “accountable as adults.”
“They knew that when they were stomping on my child’s head. That he was going to die as a result,” she said. “They are letting them get away with murdering my child.”
Five other teens were also charged in the case, with four of them, including a 13-year-old boy, pleading guilty to manslaughter in the juvenile court system. One teen is still awaiting sentencing, according to 8 News Now.
