Four Las Vegas Teenagers Plead Guilty in Juvenile Court for Fatally Beating High School Classmate

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 were originally 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.

Chief Deputy District Attorney John Giordani stated that should any of the teens back out of the deal, all four would again be charged in adult court. “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, told 8 News Now.

The four were among nine teenagers arrested in connection with Lewis’ death. He was attacked just off the campus of Rancho High School, where all were students. Authorities have said the students agreed to meet in an 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 argued that convicting the 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.

Draskovich said he would ask at sentencing for his client to be released from custody with credit for time already served. He acknowledged that his client was among those who kicked Lewis while he was on the ground but noted that a jury would have seen a video showing at least one person in Lewis’ group had a knife.

Melissa Ready, Lewis’ mother, told KLAS-TV in Las Vegas on Thursday that she was “dumbfounded” by the plea agreement. She said she had been informed by 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 but provided a statement from Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson’s office, acknowledging Ready’s comments and “the pain (she) is going through as she mourns the loss of her son.” The statement defended the resolution of the case as a balance of “thoughtful consideration of the egregious facts” and potential legal challenges prosecutors would have faced at trial.

The statement said the 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. 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. School staff called 911 and tried to help him.