After hearing emotional testimony from a grieving widow Thursday, a Baltimore City judge sentenced two teenagers to lengthy prison terms in the killing of a man over a $1 cover charge to his daughter?s Sweet 16 birthday party.
“I am angry, mad, and most of all enraged,” Bryant Jones? widow, Alisa Deneen Torbit-Jones, wrote in her victim impact statement. “I have lost my friend and it hurts. Some days are better than others, and I am trying to overcome the hate that has consumed me.”
Judge Charles Bernstein sentenced Jamal Charles, 16, to 50 years and Dwayne Drake, 17, to 40 years for the April 14, 2006, shooting death of Jones,42, on the front porch of his North Augusta Avenue house.
“They felt that $1 was enough reason to end Bryant Jones? life,” prosecutor Rita Wisthoff-Ito told the jury during closing arguments.
Prosecutors said the two teens were kicked out of the Joneses? house ? after the father ordered “no cussing, no smoking, no drinking, no guns” ? then returned to kill the father after he wouldn?t return their money.
Margaret Mead, Charles? defense attorney, told jurors that Charles argued with Jones but was standing too close to have fired the fatal shot. Drake?s attorney, Stephen Sacks, said all his client did was encourage a confrontation.
But Wisthoff-Ito said the two teens “wanted to show Bryant Jones how they handled business” and killed him.
In her victim impact statement, Torbit-Jones said the senseless murder left six children without a father.
“As long as we live we will never forget Bryant Curtis Jones nor will we ever forget Jamal Charles and Dwayne Drake who took him from us so violently and sudden,” she wrote. “We will always love and miss Bryant.”
