BX. TEEN GUILTY IN SLAY AT SCHOOL
Judge dismisses gay bullying defense
A high school student who stabbed a classmate to death in a Bronx classroom couldn’t convince a judge he acted out of fear fueled by a lifetime of being bullied.
Abel Cedeno, who was tried in front of a judge rather than a jury and testified on his own behalf, was found guilty of all charges against him Monday. The 19year-old began to cry after Bronx Supreme Court Justice Michael Gross read the verdict.
As he was led from the courtroom, his mother and grandmother wept, too, with his mother, Luz Hernandez, turning to him and saying, “I love you, Papi.”
“I love you, too,” Cedeno responded, a tear running down his cheek.
Gross, who ultimately found Cedeno guilty of firstdegree manslaughter, assault and criminal weapons possession, wasn’t swayed by his testimony that he felt endangered by the two classmates he attacked with a knife in his history class at the nowclosed Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation in the Bronx.
He faces a maximum of 25 years in prison for the most serious manslaughter charge. Gross ordered Cedeno be held without bail prior to sentencing, which is scheduled for Sept. 10.
“The presumption of innocence no longer applies to Mr. Cedeno,” Gross said. “This was a possible and foreseeable outcome.”
The verdict comes four days after Cedeno took the stand and offered a chilling retelling of how a classroom encounter on Sept. 27, 2017 with Matthew McCree and Ariane LaBoy left the 15year-old Matthew dead and put Ariane, 16, in a coma for two days.
A classmate who testified last week, Jomarlyn Colon, said Cedeno had been looking for a fight after someone pelted him with a paper ball during class.
Cedeno testified that after a verbal altercation, Matthew came toward him.
“I remember my arms going up, some of [the motions] might have been blocking, some might have been punching. I don’t specifically remember,” Cedeno said. “I don’t know the specific moment the blade entered their bodies.”
Cedeno had requested a nonjury trial at the outset of the legal proceedings.
On Thursday, he testified that he endured years of nonstop bullying at the school over his sexuality.
“They called me a b——h. They called me a f——t and gay,” he said of the taunts he endured in the years prior to the attack.
Cedeno’s lawyers argued their client was justified in killing Matthew because he feared for this life.
Matthew’s mother, Louna Dennis, stood outside the courthouse Monday and said the guilty verdict was the answer to her prayers.
“What was in my heart? That praise be to God for this outcome — for the prayers and everything that all my family and church has been doing for me,” Dennis said. “The glory goes to God first and foremost.”
Defense attorney Robert Feldman asked that Cedeno be placed in an LGBT dorm at Rikers Island until his sentencing, and Justice Gross said he would make that recommendation.
Gross also granted a request that Cedeno be placed in protective custody and receive psychiatric attention.