Abel Cedeno Seeks Youthful Offender Status
Convicted of manslaughter, bullied gay teen otherwise faces up to 25 years
BY ANDY HUMM
Abel Cedeno, set to be
sentenced on September
10 after being convicted
in July of manslaughter
in the death of classmate Matthew
McCree and of assault on another
student, Ariane Laboy, is seeking
“youthful offender” status since
he was 18 at the time of the 2017
crime and had no previous criminal
record. Cedeno’s testimony
that he acted in self-defense when
he used a knife to repel attacks by
McCree and Laboy was rejected by
the judge in the bench trial.
If he is granted youthful offender
status by Justice Michael A. Gross,
Cedeno could get a sentence of one
and a half to four years. If not,
the judge could — as he informed
Cedeno in court when he declined
a plea deal — sentence him to fi ve
to 25 years on each count.
Speaking to Gay City from Rikers
Island, Cedeno said that while
he had prayed for a not guilty verdict,
he tried to be strong and not
show emotion as consolation to
his family members, who wept in
the courtroom. His tears, he said,
came later.
He added that on the witness
stand he did not have a chance to
say “that I think about what happened
every single day and all the
pain” it caused and that he continues
to have nightmares about it. If
he could speak to Laboy and the
family of McCree, he said, “I would
tell them how sorry I am. I never
wanted this to happen. I wish I
could have said this to them sooner,”
but the court proceedings did
not allow for it. He wishes he had
found a “plan B” to escape the bullying
in school, particularly that
fateful day.
“I wished I had known about all
the support systems in the LGBT
community,” Cedeno said, noting
that no one in his school told him
about the Harvey Milk High School
that serves LGBTQ students. He
said he is being treated “okay” in
jail and “going to school.” The support
he is getting inside and out, he
said, “has helped me go on. It has
Abel Cedeno, with his mother Luz Hernandez, during his manslaugher trial at the Bronx Hall of Justice.
Louna Dennis, Matthew McCree’s mother, with her family’s attorney, Sanford Rubenstein, outside the
Bronx Hall of Justice.
been touching.”
Youth offender status for Cedeno
is supported by elected offi cials as
diverse as the anti-gay campaigner
Ruben Diaz, Sr. and out gay activist
Daniel Dromm, both members
of the New York City Council.
In a letter to Gross, Diaz wrote
that Cedeno has been “sharing
with me some of the incredible bullying
and racially charged offenses
he faced as a gay Puerto Rican” in
school. “He is not and never has
been in a gang, and many days he
felt cornered in schools.”
Diaz also said that “teachers
and guidance counselors ignored
him” and he “continued to be bullied,
ANDY HUMM
ANDY HUMM
ridiculed, and victimized. To
him, there was no one to turn to,
and in his teenage mind, he had no
idea that the knife would do more
than scare away his attackers.”
Diaz added that Cedeno is “devastated
by what resulted in his
terrible decision to bring a knife
to school” and praised him as “extraordinarily
compassionate for
some of the weak and vulnerable
members of society.”
Dromm, who has been out since
his days as a Queens public school
teacher and is the former chair of
the Education Committee, wrote
that Cedeno “was just an LGBT
youth trying to navigate the bullying,
CRIME
harassment, and threats of
violence that still characterize too
many of our schools and neighborhoods…
An environment free
of these problems is best to encourage
the shaping of Abel into a
productive member of our society.
Prison is no such environment.”
He added that within the LGBTQ
community, “Abel has a support
network in place to ensure that his
time away will be spent focusing
on successful reentry.”
Dromm asked the judge “not to
compound this tragedy.”
An online Change.org petition
to the judge asking that Cedeno
be given youthful offender status,
started independently by Stephanie
Perez, has garnered more than
1,100 signatures. It implores Gross
to consider “all mitigating factors
in the case” and to grant sentence
Cedeno as a youth so that “when
he fi nishes his sentence of state
jail, he can live his life without
the stigma of convicted violent offender
to follow him forever.”
The social worker at Callen-
Lorde Community Health Center
who has worked with Cedeno since
January of 2018 also wrote to the
judge urging youthful offender status.
Sanford Rubenstein, who is representing
McCree’s mother, Louna
Dennis, in a $25 million civil suit
against the city and Cedeno and
who was at her side through the
almost-two years of court proceedings,
said, “My client made it
clear that she opposes YO status
because it is a serious crime for
which Cedeno was convicted.”
That lawsuit and another
brought by the seriously injured
Laboy are about to get underway.
Dennis and Laboy, who testifi ed
at the trial, are expected to make
victim statements to the court before
sentencing.
Christopher R. Lynn, Cedeno’s
attorney, noting that Cedeno is being
held in a Rikers unit with other
LGBTQ inmates, said his client
used his time while out on bail “to
grapple with the damage done to
➤ ABEL CEDENO, continued on p.37
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/Change.org
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