Teen sentenced for killing Barnard college student

A teenager on Thursday was sentenced to nine years to life in prison for his role in the killing of a Barnard College student, The New York Times reports.

Luchiano Lewis, 16, admitted last month that he and two friends had targeted and stabbed to death 18-year-old student Tessa Majors. The incident occurred in Harlem’s Morningside Park in December 2019 as the trio was looking for victims to rob.

Lewis, who entered a guilty plea last month, was charged as an adult despite being 14 at the time. He received the maximum possible sentence, notes the Times.

“The defendant was and is extremely young. He has his whole life ahead of him but Tessa Majors does not,” said Judge Robert Mandelbaum, who handed down Lewis’s sentence, according to ABC News.

The two other teens involved, 16-year-old Rashaun Weaver and a 13-year-old juvenile, are awaiting trial and already serving a sentence, respectively.

In an impact statement read Thursday in court, Majors’s family said the “hopes and dreams” for their daughter came to a “tragic end” the day she died.

“Nearly two years later, we still find words inadequate to describe the immeasurable pain, trauma and suffering that our family has endured since her senseless murder.”

Lewis in turn said he feels “ashamed, embarrassed and sad” for killing Majors. “Nothing I say or do can change that fact.”