Abel C and his legal team – Photo: NBC 4-New York.
The Bronx teen convicted of fatally stabbing a classmate and injuring a second has been sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Abel Cedeño was found guilty of manslaughter in a bench trial in July for the 2017 slaying 15-year-old Matthew McCree, a classmate of his from the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation. Cedeño was also found guilty of criminal possession of a weapon and assault for stabbing classmate Ariane Laboy when he attempted to intervene in the altercation between Cedeño and McCree.
At trial, prosecutors argued that Cedeño had brandished the knife used in the stabbing on social media days before the incident, which they claimed was evidence he had planned the attack beforehand.
But Cedeño claimed that he had endured years of bullying because of his sexual orientation before he snapped, and had brought the knife to school to defend himself should be be attacked.
Cedeño testified during his trial that his classmates had been harassing him in class prior to the stabbing. He then excused himself to go to the bathroom, but returned with a knife. He claimed he didn’t remember stabbing anyone, but remembered being attacked.
Prosecutors acknowledged that McCree and Laboy, as well as others, had been throwing broken bits of pencils, pen caps, and balls of paper at Cedeño’s head during history class, but asserted that neither McCree nor Laboy had bullied Cedeño on a regular basis.
On Tuesday, Justice Michael Gross refused to grant a request from Cedeño’s lawyers that their client be treated as a youthful offender, saying that being a victim of bullying could not be seen as a “license for murderous rage,” reports The New York Times.
Gross also said he believed that Cedeño had been bullied, but noted that the teen had testified that he had not really known his victims and that they had not tormented him.
Cedeño addressed the court, telling Justice Gross that he was not the same person he had been two years ago, and that he was remorseful for his actions.
“I know that I was the one who brought in a knife,” he said. “I wish I could take it all back.”
A 20-year-old Brooklyn smoke shop employee has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for fatally stabbing gay professional dancer O'Shae Sibley at a Midwood gas station in 2023.
Last month, a Brooklyn jury found Dmitry Popov, who was 17 at the time of the stabbing, guilty of manslaughter as a hate crime for killing the 28-year-old Sibley during an altercation fueled by anti-gay animus.
Popov was also convicted of second-degree menacing, second-degree aggravated harassment, and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon. But he was acquitted of the most serious charge, second-degree murder as a hate crime.
According to evidence presented at trial, Popov and two friends encountered Sibley and his friends at a Mobil gas station on July 29, 2023, and began harassing them for dancing and voguing to music while filling up their car. Sibley and his friends were returning from a day at the beach.
The three youths hurled homophobic and anti-Black slurs at the men, telling them to "Get that gay shit out of here" and mocking their appearances and effeminate mannerisms.
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