The criminal cases against two cousins charged in the 2018 fatal attack on D.C. honor student Tyshon Perry ended in a courtroom Thursday with one defendant being led away to prison for about 3？ years and the other headed home on probation.
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Kurt Hewitt, 22, and Demonte Hewitt, 20, had admitted in court that they were among four assailants who attacked 16-year-old Tyshon and a group of his friends near KIPP D.C. College Preparatory charter high school, where the victims were students. In the ensuing melee, one of the assailants plunged a knife into Tyshon’s chest, severing his aorta.
Nearly four years after the killing, however, authorities still cannot say for sure which of the attackers committed the stabbing. The Hewitt cousins — the only assailants arrested in the case so far — were initially charged with second-degree murder, before they agreed to plead guilty to reduced charges in deals with the U.S. attorney’s office in the District.
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“At first blush to me, and probably to most objective observers, these agreements seem very lenient, given the indictment of both defendants for a charge of second-degree murder while armed,” Judge Neal E. Kravitz said from the bench Thursday in D.C. Superior Court, after Tyshon’s mother urged him to reject the plea bargains.
“There needs to be harsh consequences for violent actions,” the mother, Gina Nixon-Perry, said in a low, trembling voice. But Kravitz ultimately approved the deals.
‘Tyshon’s dying!’ A frantic call sent a D.C. mother to her son, stabbed in a melee, but it was too late.
After obtaining the murder indictments under the legal doctrine of accomplice liability — alleging that all the attackers were culpable for the homicide regardless of which one wielded the knife — prosecutors decided they were unlikely to gain murder convictions against the cousins based on that theory, Assistant U.S. Attorney Colleen Kukowski said in court.
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Second-degree murder in D.C. is punishable by up to life in prison. But prosecutors last fall agreed to move for dismissals of the murder charges in return for the Hewitts pleading guilty to two counts each of assault with a dangerous weapon.
“It’s understandable why they’re frustrated by this plea agreement,” Kukowski told the judge, referring to Tyshon’s loved ones and friends. “What we also know all too well is that the criminal justice system has limits to it.”
Kravitz sentenced Kurt Hewitt to six years for the assault that left Tyshon dead and 18 months for burglary in an unrelated case that was part of the plea bargain, for a total of 7？ years. He has been in the D.C. jail for nearly four years since his arrest. With credit for that time behind bars, he has about 3？ years left to serve.
D.C. police arrest two suspects in fatal stabbing of high school student
Demonte Hewitt, who the judge said was less culpable in the attack than his cousin and has done more to improve himself in jail, was sentenced to a total of 46 months for the assault and for charges in the unrelated case. He also has been in jail for nearly four years, meaning Thursday’s sentencing will “allow for his immediate release on probation,” the judge said.
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Tyshon, who aspired to a career in the FBI, was a sophomore honor student at KIPP. Shortly after 4:30 p.m. on May 1, 2018, he and several friends, including a teen identified in court papers only as “A.C.,” were confronted by the assailants in the 1300 block of Second Street NE, near the KIPP campus.
Hours earlier, in a classroom, A.C. had gotten into a shoving match with a female student, police said. They said the assailants, none of whom attended KIPP, showed up after school to assault A.C. on the girl’s behalf. Tyshon was stabbed when he came to his friend’s aid.
Referring to Tyshon’s family, Jessica Willis, representing Demonte Hewitt, said, “The magnitude of their loss, the depth of their grief, is beyond words.” But, she added, “there was no evidence that Demonte stabbed their son.”
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By charging the Hewitts with murder based on a weak legal theory, Willis said, “law enforcement led Tyshon’s family to think” the result would be decades-long prison terms, “which can only have contributed to their confusion and disappointment today.”
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Kravitz seemed to agree that the murder charges were a stretch. “It would have been difficult — if not very difficult — for the government” to gain homicide convictions against the cousins, the judge said in approving the deals.
“As frustrating as it often is for the victims or the family of victims of serious crimes,” he said, “it is entirely reasonable for a prosecutor to take the strength of the evidence into account in fashioning a plea offer.”