WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (WCBS) – A New York teenager will spend several years in prison after pleading guilty to stabbing a rival cheerleader.
The emotional moments came Tuesday when a judge sentenced a 15-year-old cheerleader to three to nine years behind bars. A teenage girl has pleaded guilty to stabbing 16-year-old Kayla Green, a member of a rival cheerleading squad in Mount Vernon, New York.
Green’s mother, Laverne Gordon, spoke in court and afterward of the pain she will forever feel over losing her promising daughter.
“Her killer will get out in three years to live his life, have a family and have a career. My daughter will never see that,” Gordon said.
Green was attacked after a rally in Mount Vernon in April 2022 to celebrate the basketball championship. The attacker was a 15-year-old youth armed with a knife, which he had previously demonstrated on social media on April 8.
The motive is difficult to understand.
“A long-standing rivalry between two cheerleading teams in the town of Mount Vernon,” said Westchester County Judge Susan Cacace.
Cacace says the defendant, who is not being named because of his age, has a history of violent behavior.
Prosecutors say it’s impossible to truly understand what set him on his deadly path.
“This was a deliberate, senseless and vicious, intentional crime that has caused immeasurable pain,” said prosecutor James Bavero.
The 15-year-old expressed remorse in court, reading a tearful statement.
“I think about all the different choices I could have made that day that would have kept Kayla alive and saved her family from this heartache. But the reason everyone is here today is because I made bad choices,” the statement read in part.
The judge pointed to a hopeful sign, saying the 15-year-old had successfully coped in custody and he hoped the teenager was on the road to making something of his life.
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