Elijah Russell signed a plea deal in July for armed robbery after admitting he helped lure a kid, then held a knife to his throat, leading him to a backyard where he was severely beaten.
Court records show the victim admitted he stole part of a “blunt” from Russell’s group the day before. Two other juveniles who beat the victim were also charged.
Russell asked Judge Samuel Cappas Tuesday for leniency, saying he would get a G.E.D. and wanted to earn a college basketball scholarship.
How are you going to do that, when you didn’t in high school, the judge asked.
“Hard work,” Russell, now 18, of Des Moines, Iowa, formerly of Gary, responded.
Calling him a “dangerous” person, Cappas gave him the six-year maximum sentence under the plea deal in the Indiana Department of Correction — even more time than prosecutors asked. His last year would be served in Lake County Community Corrections.
“This is what you see all the time on the news,” he told Russell.
Deputy Prosecutor Chris Bruno, noted the cases were waived up from juvenile court for the violent robbery. For Russell, he asked for three years in prison, 1.5 years in community corrections and 18 months probation.
Defense lawyer Nick Barnes said there was more to Russell’s story.
After his dad died when he was 11 and mom got sick, he was left with grandparents in Gary — “essentially unsupervised,” Barnes said. He asked for him to avoid prison, saying he already spent nearly a year behind bars.
What happened was “certainly a disappointment,” but “not a surprise.”
Russell, in a white juvenile prison jumpsuit, said he wanted to move his life in a “different direction.”
When Cappas asked how probation would “change your life,” Russell said he didn’t have an answer.
Hammond police responded early on Jan. 13 to the 3200 block of 163rd Street.
The victim said the trio invited him over to smoke marijuana. He slipped into the back seat of a car parked into a garage.
Russell, the older teen, stepped out of the car and forced the victim to the backyard while holding a switchblade to his throat. The three kids beat him and took his stuff, including an iPhone, Apple cards, and his backpack.
Another teen, 16, beat the victim over the head with part of a bed frame, according to the affidavit. While on the ground, Russell and the other 16-year-old beat, kicked and stomped him.
The kid was “too hurt” to ride his bike home. A witness called 911 and he was taken to the hospital. He had a broken nose, swollen eye and cuts.
Police found the trio and the victim’s cell phone.
One teen was also sentenced to six years in September after a plea deal for armed robbery.
The case for the second teen, also still underage, is pending. He was also charged, named as an accomplice, with helping to rob a pizza delivery guy a year earlier.