Two Plead Guilty To Kidnapping -- Third Man Still Sought In Assault That Left Girl For Dead
Two young men who King County prosecutors say abducted a teenage girl from a Seattle street and left her for dead in a Federal Way trash bin have pleaded guilty to first-degree kidnap and assault charges.
Larone Deshawn Charles, 20, of Seattle and Roy Lamont Johnson, 19, of Federal Way entered their pleas before Superior Judge Patricia Aitken yesterday.
Deputy Prosecutor Cheryl Carey said she will ask for prison terms of 17 years for Charles and 12 years for Johnson.
A third suspect, Cuttray Shawn White, 19, is still at large.
Prosecutors contended the three men abducted the 16-year-old near Cleveland High School late in the evening of Jan. 23 and assaulted her as they drove toward South King County.
During the attack, prosecutors say, the girl was beaten, stripped, her throat slit, and she was left in a Federal Way trash bin, where she feigned death.
When the men drove off. the girl, bleeding from the neck, walked into a nearby tavern for help.
A treating physician said the girl was lucky to have survived because one of her two major wounds was close to an artery.
The girl told police the men, whom she knew, jumped out of the car as she walked along the sidewalk and one accused her of stealing money from his mother.
The girl, who lived in a foster home at the time, has recovered from her injuries and has been held in the county Juvenile Detention Center since the attack, partly for her protection and to ensure she would testify.
Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the prosecutors office, said the girl apparently has no strong ties to the community and the court will have to consider where and how to place her.
The two men were originally charged with first-degree attempted murder, but entered pleas when prosecutors agreed to reduce it to first-degree assault.
Prosecutors will ask for a harsher sentence against Charles, they say, because his actions were more vicious and Johnson has agreed to cooperate with prosecuting the third man.