The man who threw a rock that left another man with a fatal head injury during a 2018 brawl in Lewiston’s Kennedy Park has been sentenced.
Emmanuel Nkuruziza, 21, was sentenced to 10 years with all but nine months suspended and four years probation in Cumberland County Superior Court on Thursday, the Lewiston Sun Journal reported. Nkuruziza will serve that sentence at Cumberland County Jail in Portland.
That brings to an end a 4-year ordeal since the night of the brawl on June 12, 2018, which raised ethnic tensions in the city on the Androscoggin River.
The brawl was the cumulination of ill will simmering between a group of white men and Black teens. The group of 15 men, including 38-year-old Donald Giusti, were congregated in Kennedy Park, while the 30 teens were gathered on Knox Street.
On that night, a car passing by the groups fired a BB gun at Giusti and the other men in the park, which Giusti believed the teens fired, according to the Sun Journal.
The men crossed over to the teens to confront them, and a fight broke out that has been described as a “battle royal.” One of the men struck Nkuruziza and his cousin with a barbell. In response, Nkuruziza threw a nearby rock, which struck Giusti in the head, leaving him with a fatal injury, the newspaper reported.
Giusti died three days later.
Nkuruziza wasn’t arrested until nearly 10 months later at age 17, along with then 23-year-old Pierre Musafiri of Lewiston and a 13-year-old. Later that year, a judge approved the state’s request to try him as an adult.
A fourth man, 27-year-old Timothy Lamothe, was charged in June with aggravated assault for allegedly using a metal pipe to knock a boy unconscious during the brawl. Lamothe pleaded guilty to that charge and was sentenced in District Court to seven days in jail, which he already has served.
In January 2020, Musafiri pleaded guilty to assault for kicking Giusti after he was struck with the rock. He was sentenced to seven days in jail and ordered to pay a $300 fine, according to the Associated Press.
Thursday’s sentencing came two days after Nkuruziza pleaded no contest to criminally negligent manslaughter as part of a plea bargain that saw prosecutors drop aggravated assault and simple assault charges against him and the element of recklessness from the remaining charge, the Sun Journal reported.
That means Nkuruziza will likely avoid deportation to Rwanda, according to the newspaper.
The trial was set to take place at the Cumberland County courthouse, where it was moved because of publicity surrounding it in Lewiston.
