2 teens get jail time in Mexican's beating death

By Emanuella Grinberg
CNN

(CNN) -- Two Pennsylvania teens will serve time in a county jail for participating in a brawl that left a Mexican immigrant dead last July.

Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak's joint trial began in late April in Schuykill County, Pennsylvania.

1 of 2 Brandon Piekarsky, 17, was sentenced to 6 to 23 months, and Derrick Donchak, 19, received 7 to 23 months for their roles in the beating death of 25-year-old Luis Ramirez.

Judge William Baldwin ordered the two to report to Schuylkill County jail on July 19 to begin serving their sentences.

A Schuylkill County jury convicted the two former high school football players of misdemeanor simple assault at trial last month and acquitted them of felony counts, including aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation and hindering apprehension -- charges that carried lengthier sentences.

In fashioning his sentence, Baldwin acknowledged the severity of the attack, which left Ramirez on life support for two days before he died, but said he could pass a sentence only in accordance with the jury's verdict.

"This wasn't any fight, this was a group of young athletes ganging up on one person. That's not a street fight," Baldwin said, referring to the defense team's characterization of the confrontation as a "street fight."

"You picked out a guy who wasn't one of you and beat the pulp out of him," Baldwin said.

Baldwin heard from several teachers, coaches and family friends who testified that the teens were good kids who fell into a bad situation and urged leniency so they could realize their potential as adults.

The judge also tacked on extra days to each boy's sentence for consuming alcohol earlier in the evening. For providing the alcohol to his friends before the fight, Donchak was also convicted of corrupting minors.

Jurors found Piekarsky not guilty of third-degree murder. Prosecutors had said he delivered a fatal kick to Ramirez's head after Ramirez was knocked to the ground in the alcohol-fueled brawl, which occurred on a residential street in Shenandoah the evening of July 12.

Prosecutors alleged that a group of teens, which included Piekarsky and Donchak, baited Ramirez into the initial confrontation after a night of drinking, hurling racial epithets at the undocumented Mexican immigrant.

After the fight broke up, witnesses said Ramirez came back at the teens, who beat him so severely that, according to a medical testimony, brain tissue oozed out of his skull during surgery at a hospital.

Jurors heard from several teens who witnessed the incident but did not participate, as well as one teen who pleaded guilty in juvenile court and another whose case is being handled in federal court. The testimony painted a picture of confusion, with several inconsistencies as to who did what.

Defense lawyers argued that Ramirez's death was a brawl gone wrong that was in no way racially motivated. They also suggested that Ramirez was responsible for triggering the second confrontation.

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