Man sentenced to 4-10 years in prison for Prospect Park home invasion in May 2016
MEDIA COURTHOUSE » A 19-year-old Pocono Summit man was sentenced to four to 10 years in a state prison Wednesday for a May 2016 home invasion in Prospect Park that terrorized a family of three.
Nikoly Lewis entered a negotiated guilty plea to one count each of robbery and conspiracy to robbery, both first-degree felonies, before Delaware County Common Pleas Court Judge James Nilon.
Under the plea deal worked out by Assistant District Attorney Meaghan Wagner and defense counsel James Halligan, Lewis will also serve five years of state probation and continue to assist in the prosecution of his co-defendants, Dakir Grant, 24, of Monroe County, and Layquan Johnson, 23, of New York.
Grant entered an open plea to robbery, burglary, conspiracy and felon not to possess a firearm in May, for which he was sentenced to 11 to 22 years in a state prison. Johnson remains in custody in New York.
The three men forced their way into a home in the 200 block of Lafayette Avenue at about 10:20 p.m. May 30, 2016, and held the family there at gunpoint, including a 16-year-old girl, according to police.
Police said Grant held the homeowners at gunpoint on the kitchen floor while the other two ransacked the home. The teenager was able to call 911 before the phone was ripped from her hand, breaking her finger in two places, according to the mother.
The robbers fled when they saw the flashing lights of a police car outside. Authorities discovered two shotguns in the backyard. The mother said at least one of the guns as well as a getaway car had been reported stolen.
The two adult victims noted Wednesday that the television and lights were on in the home, and there were cars in the driveway, so there was no question the three men knew the residence was occupied.
The mother said Grant was the most arrogant of the three, but Lewis had been the most violent, kicking in a basement door as she tried to close it, breaking it in half.
She said Lewis also ripped the home phone off the wall and pointed a shotgun at her while demanding to know where her cell phone was.
The woman said she suffered panic attacks and slept on her daughter’s floor for three months following the robbery. She said she felt she had failed her daughter before coming to the realization that she was not to blame for Lewis’s actions.
Johnson, a career criminal and member of the Bloods street gang, was mistakenly freed from a Brooklyn courthouse in May 2016 after convincing a guard there he was someone else, according to an April 4 story in the New York Post. Johnson fled to Pennsylvania, where he allegedly recruited the other two men for the robbery against their will. He was rearrested a few weeks after the home invasion.
“There was no gun to your head,” the father told Lewis Wednesday. “The gun was to my head.”
Halligan noted his client had a strong family presence in the courtroom Wednesday. Lewis also apologized to the victims.
Wagner asked that Lewis not be housed with either of the other defendants and Lewis asked that he not be sent to SCI Pine Grove, which specializes in youthful offenders. He is not eligible for early release.