Syracuse, N.Y. — A 17-year-old boy who was initially charged with murder in the Rye Day shooting that killed one and injured nine pleaded guilty to a lesser charge Wednesday.
Lamar Cepada pleaded guilty to second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, a charge that could carry a sentence of eight years in state prison.
Judge Thomas J. Miller will have to decide whether Cepada will be granted youthful offender status, which would seal Cepada’s conviction.
Cepada was one of 10 people charged in the incident and became the seventh to plead guilty. Six of those charged have pleaded guilty to a lesser offense, like second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.
He is not accused of firing the bullet that killed 17-year-old Chariel Osorio.
Devar Williams, who is reconsidering a plea deal in the case, has been accused by prosecutors of shooting Osorio when he fired his own gun in self defense.
Williams is accused of returning fire after Handsome Rice fired the first shots at Performance Park on the Near West Side at a birthday party where hundreds were gathered last June, prosecutors have said.
Williams, if he takes the plea deal, could face 17 to 21 years in state prison.
Eight were initially accused of murder despite not killing anyone. Had they gone to trial, they would’ve faced possible 25-year-to-life sentences as accomplices.
The murder charges stem from the fact that all of them are accused of firing into a crowd with hundreds of people, prosecutor Shaun Chase has said in court. A bystander dying makes them all liable for murder, he said.
The eight accused of firing at each other in June were allowed to be charged with murder under a “depraved indifference” theory. They are accused of disregarding the extreme risk of firing into a large crowd, with someone dying as a result, Miller has said.
Cepada is set to be sentenced Oct. 1.
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