One of three teens accused of killing Barnard student Tessa Majors during a mugging in 2019 has pleaded guilty to murder as part of a plea deal with prosecutors.
Luchiano Lewis, now 16, was just 14 years old when he and two friends allegedly attacked 18-year-old Majors in a New York City park.
Lewis on Tuesday pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree robbery in Manhattan Supreme Court, a spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney's Office said.
He will be sentenced on October 15th, according to local court records.
Lewis appeared in an adult court despite being 14 at the time of the murder.
He is the second of three minors charged in the murder of Majors, who was stabbed multiple times during the botched mugging on 11 December 2019 in Morningside Park, which is near the Manhattan campuses of Barnard College and Columbia University.
In a statement to the court, Lewis said that he had not realized Majors was dead until the next day, but said he watched as co-defendant Rashaun Weaver repeatedly stab her in the chest, the New York Post reports.
Luchiano Lewis, 16, was charged as an adult with murder and robbery in the December 11 slaying of 18-year-old Barnard student Tessa Majors in Manhattan's Morningside Park
Lewis gave a detailed account of the night of Majors' death in a Manhattan court on Tuesday
Slain Barnard College student Tessa Majors was murdered in Morningside Park on December 11, 2019
Lewis cooperated with Manhattan prosecutors against the main suspect, 16-year-old co-defendant Weaver, who is accused of stabbing Majors.
Weaver, who has not been trialed as of yet, faces the same counts as Lewis, whose agreement with local authorities is not considered as part of a plea deal, according to the New York Post.
Zyairr Davis, a 14-year-old boy, is the third boy involved in the attack.
He pleaded guilty as a juvenile last year to one count of first-degree robbery and was sentenced to 18 months in detention.
Rashaun Weaver (left) is accused of fatally stabbing her and Luchiano Lewis (right) is accused of holding her back while he did it. They were both charged as adults and Weaver is awaiting trial while Lewis was charged with second-degree murder and robbery
Prosecutors allege that Weaver, Lewis and Davis were looking to mug someone when they went to Morningside park, where they spotted Majors, on December 11th.
Majors yelled for help and attempted to fight off the three boys while Lewis allegedly held her in a headlock position.
Lewis maintains his stance on Weaver being the one who stabbed Majors after seeing feathers in her down coat fly into the air, according to court papers.
Majors collapsed on a flight of stairs at street level after she was stabbed. She was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Davis said he handed Weaver the knife used to kill Majors upon their arrival at the park, well before they noticed her, according to his videotaped confession.
Before his sentencing, he told the judge: 'I went into Morningside Park in Manhattan with Rashaun and Lucci.
Police tape is seen at the scene on the stairs in Morningside Park the day after the murder
Tessa was stabbed at these stairs in Morningside Park, on the Upper West Side, in December last year
The charges come nearly two months after the gruesome slaying shocked New York City. Pictured: NYPD Scuba team searched Morningside Park for evidence involving the stabbing death of Tessa Majors in December 2019
'We went to the park planning to rob someone. In the park, one of my friends dropped a knife. I picked up the knife and handed it to Rashaun.'
In September of last year, police said Weaver allegedly confessed to the brutal murder in a wire-tapped phone conversation with his father Clifford Weaver, who was behind bars upstate at the time on a parole violation.
Weaver has also been charged for another indictment in a separate violent robbery that happened four days before Majors' death.
'The defendant stated in substance that he was in the park and tried to take the girl's phone and 'she was hanging onto her phone' and that he hit her with a knife,' court papers revealed, describing the conversation.
The elder Weaver has a long history of convictions on robbery and drug charges, and was incarcerated at Mohawk Correctional Facility at the time of the phone call.
Last September, a grand jury unsealed an indictment against Weaver in a separate violent robbery, which police say he committed while on the run from cops as a suspect in Majors' murder.
Majors' (pictured) murder shocked the student bodies at nearby Barnard and Columbia University.
According to the indictment, Weaver and his associate Keith Bonds, 14, beat and robbed a man on Valentine's Day in East Harlem.
The alleged victim was lured to 65 East 112th Street with the offer to buy a cellphone from Bonds, but was instead viciously beaten and robbed, according to the indictment.
Weaver, wearing a black ski mask, distracted the victim by asking him if he had any weed, before Weaver, Bonds, and two unidentified accomplices jumped the man and robbed him of $130, his cellphone and his shoes, prosecutors say,
At the time, he had already been questioned by police in Majors' death but released without charges.
Weaver is being held without bail in a juvenile facility. He is next due in court on November 12 for a pre-trial conference.
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