Tessa Majors.Photo: Tessa Majors/Instagram
A 16-year-old boy has been sentenced to nine years to life in prison for the 2019 killing of Barnard CollegeTessa Majors.
Luchiano Lewis, who was 14 at the time of the killing, pleaded guilty last month to second-degree murder and first-degree robbery. He was charged as an adult.
On Thursday, a judge handed down the maximum sentence for the crime,according to ABC 7.
In addition to his murder sentence, Lewis was also sentenced to 40 months for robbery, which he will serve concurrently,The New York Timesreports.
“The murder of Tessa Majors tore at the fabric of the entire city,” Judge Robert Mandelbaum said in court, per ABC 7. “The defendant was and is extremely young. He has his whole life ahead of him but Tessa Majors does not.”
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Tessa Majors.Tessa Majors/Instagram
Majors was stabbed multiple times during a botched robbery inside Morningside Park, which is near the Barnard and Columbia University campuses in Manhattan.
Another suspect in the case, Rashaun Weaver, is also charged with second-degree murder and robbery and has pleaded not guilty.
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The NYTreports that Weaver’s trial date is expected to be set next week.
A third boy, who was 13 at the time of the slaying,pleaded guilty to robberyand was sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile facility. (PEOPLE is not naming the boy, who was charged as a juvenile.)
Majors was a talented musician who played bass guitar and cared deeply for others.
Chris Graham, the editor of theAugusta Free Pressin Virginia, where Majors had an internship, told PEOPLE in 2020 that Majors was “a natural journalist” who used the platform to help people, including writing a story on someone creating an app to help people with disabilities.
“It’s not fair that her life was snuffed out so senselessly,” he said. “The tragedy beyond comprehension is that we will never know what she would have gone on to do.”
Graham added, “She was going to make the world a better place. She already was making the world a better place.”
source: people.com
