Murder sentence: 25 years to life

ALBANY — A judge sentenced Darius Cokely to 25 years to life in prison Wednesday for the deadly stabbing of 22-year-old Maurice Skeen in a murder that followed a street brawl prompted by a teenager’s insensitive remark on Facebook.

Cokely, 23, of Albany, known as “Draino,” was convicted in November of second-degree murder for the March 18, 2020, slaying following a two-week jury trial before Albany County Judge Andra Ackerman.

The sequence of events leading to the bloodshed began when Skeen’s cousin, who was 18 at the time, made a crass comment on Facebook about a recently deceased 22-year-old woman who was a close friend of Cokely. The remark infuriated Cokely and the late woman’s friends who went to the home of the teenager’s grandmother on

Madison Avenue, where he was, and started a street brawl.

During the fight, Skeen was stabbed in the chest.

“I will kill you,” Cokely told Skeen before the stabbing, according to what Assistant District Attorney Joseph Brucato told jurors when he addressed them in November.

Skeen’s grandmother, Tracy Coleman, told the defendant that if he took responsibility for killing her grandson, she would have approached the parole board and supported his release at his first opportunity. But Cokely, she said, has never taken responsibility even after seeing the stabbing on video.

“I saw you Draino. I saw you lunge at my grandson,” she told Cokely.

“I just want you to own it,” she continued. “It wasn’t just Maurice. You came to kill whatever was in front of you.”

The grandmother said while

Cokely’s family can see him in a prison visiting room, she cannot see Skeen.

“You didn’t kill Maurice because she hated him . ... You killed a warrior,” she said. “He died protecting what was behind him which was me and the females he loved.”

Skeen’s aunt could barely compose herself as she delivered her victim impact statement, telling Cokely that on the day of the stabbing the defendant made the dumbest decision of his life.

“You decided to take another brother’s life,” said Kim Fortune, who is Black. “You are now considered a young Black brother who killed another young Black brother. Another stain, another blow in the Black community.”

She reminded Cokely that he had texted someone pledging to kill, then went to trial without taking responsibility.

“You’re not taking any accountability for what you did,” she told Skeen. “You took a complete stranger ... you took him away from his family. You crushed us.”

She told Cokely to look deep in his soul and get right with god or he would “bust hell wide open.”

Brucato reminded the judge that Cokely has been unwilling to take responsibility for senselessly taking the life of Skeen. Out of the 30 or so people involved in the brawl, he said, Cokely brought a knife.

The prosecutor said Cokely deserved a harsher penalty than the maximum 25-to-life sentence but asked for the maximum nevertheless.

When given a chance to speak, Cokely, sitting beside defense attorney, Lee Kindlon, declined.

Ackerman reminded Cokely that on March 18, 2020, Cokely went to the home of Skeen’s family armed with a knife and plunged the weapon into Skeen’s chest in a “calculated shot right to the heart.

“We all saw the video,” the judge continued. “You took out all of your hate on him. You took his young life out of this world.”

The judge said in many cases, Cokely’s young age and absence of a prior criminal history would be factors in her sentencing of a defendant. But she questioned how that could mitigate Cokely’s crime and the pain it has caused to Skeen’s family and friends.

“It just doesn’t,” Ackerman said. “But I’ll tell you what does. This court finds your lack of remorse, your utter lack of accepting responsibility for what you did — and we all saw it on the video.”