LAST OF FIVE DEFENDANTS SENTENCED IN THE BRUTAL BEATING AND
STRANGULATION DEATH OF A 21-YEAR-OLD BRONX MAN
Bronx District Attorney Robert T. Johnson announced today that the last of five defendants in the brutal beating and strangulation death of a 21-year-old Bronx man has been sentenced.
24-year-old Tyshon Cates was sentenced by Acting State Supreme Court Justice John Carter to six years imprisonment for manslaughter in the death of Matharr Cham in June 2006. Cates was charged with acting-in-concert with four other people, including his stepfather, Walter Cates Sr., stepbrother Walter Cates Jr. and two family friends, Raheem Davis and Lee Carr.
Tyshon Cates pled guilty to one count of Manslaughter in the 1st degree on June 1, 2009. He entered the plea after his trial last month ended in an acquittal on a murder charge and a hung jury on the manslaughter charge.
Co-defendants Walter Cates Sr. (a.k.a. Walter Johnson), 52, and Lee Carr, 35, were found guilty of Murder in the 2nd degree on May 7, 2009 and are serving a sentence of 25 years to life imprisonment. Walter Cates Jr., 33, and Raheem Davis, 35, pled guilty to Manslaughter in the 1st degree on May 20, 2009 and were sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.
The brutal killing occurred on June 21, 2006 in an apartment at the Edenwald Houses at 4030 Laconia Avenue in the northeast Bronx. Cham, an acquaintance of Tyshon Cates and his family, was jumped and body slammed when he entered the apartment where Walter Cates Sr. was living. As Cates Sr. and Walter Cates Jr. pinned Cham on the floor, Tyshon Cates joined Raheem Davis and Lee Carr in kicking and punching Cham before he was strangled. The body was stripped naked and put in a plastic garbage bag. The victims remains were driven to a junkyard on East 233rd Street where it was placed in a dumpster, soaked with gasoline and set ablaze. The defendants were arrested following an eight-month investigation by the 47th Precinct Detective Squad and the NYPD Bronx Homicide Task Force, however the motive for the homicide remains unclear.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Susanna Imbo and Senior Trial Assistant District Attorney Theresa Gottlieb.
|