Not me in slay video – ‘scared’ teen
Insists he didn’t join beat over $1
The Bronx teen charged in the fatal Christmas Eve beating of a man during a $1 robbery tearfully denied taking part in the horrifying attack, insisting, “I never touched that man.”
Abu Conteh said he was hanging out with a group of friends and stumbled upon the brutal beatdown as it was underway — and then made the mistake of retrieving the killer’s jacket for him.
“We was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Conteh, 18, told the Daily News in an interview Wednesday on Rikers Island. “Now I’m afraid I’ll be sentenced for something I didn’t do.”
Conteh is charged with murder, gang assault and robbery in the vicious attack that cost 60-year-old Juan Fresnada his life. He’s the only suspect to be arrested in the case so far.
Fresnada was mortally wounded trying to protect his boyfriend, Byron Caceres, from a band of muggers outside a McDonald’s on Third Ave. in Morrisania in the Bronx.
Witnesses told police that Conteh and four others beat and stomped Fresnada in the head and upper body, and the teen made incriminating statements, according to a criminal complaint.
Caceres has previously told The News how four relentless assailants beat his partner for 15 terrifying minutes before leaving him on the street. Fresnada appeared helpless to defend himself, as one of the attackers pummeled his head.
On Wednesday, Conteh appeared both frightened and confused about the charges.
“They brought me in for questioning and now I’m here,” he said in a soft voice. “I didn’t do it. … I never touched that man. I was scared, too.”
Conteh said he and two friends were at a house party earlier in the night, along with the attackers.
He and his two friends left about 1 a.m. to go to a deli, he said.
“That’s the surveillance shot they got. That was before the attack happened,” he said. “I’m there with my two friends, and I don’t know the guy next to me. He was just going to the store, too.”
They came out of the store and stumbled upon the attack, he said.
“The footage of the attack … I told the detectives it’s not me in that video,” Conteh said. “They got me because I was there and I was scared, and the attacker came to me and told me to go get his jacket.
“He had taken off his jacket nearby, and he tells me get my jacket and I was scared. I dunno what this guy could do. He had just beat a man, so I went and got it for him and gave it to him.”
After that, he and his friends tried to return to the party. When the party’s hosts wouldn’t let him back in, he went home, he said.
“Police have that footage and so they think I was with them, but we wasn’t,” he said. “I’m scared I’m going to get like a life sentence. My lawyers told me its murder in the second degree, but I didn’t even touch that man.”
Conteh, who remains held without bail, returns to Bronx Criminal Court on Friday.
He said if he gets out, he just wants to finish high school and improve his grades.
“I want to tell my mom I’ll be home soon. I want to be home soon,” Conteh said.