Almost 27 months after he was arrested and charged with homicide, Malik Crosby pleaded guilty Monday to involuntary manslaughter and left President Judge Jeffrey A. Manning's courtroom in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas with no more jail time to serve.
Crosby, 18, was sentenced to a maximum of just under two years in prison for his role in the Jan. 10, 2015, deadly beating of 16-year-old Nicholas Grant at a Carrick group home. In jail since the day after the assault, Crosby's time served fulfilled the maximum sentence.
He began 18 months of probation when he left the courtroom.
Crosby's co-defendant, Yusuf Shepard, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter March 22. He was sentenced to five to 10 years in prison.
According to a criminal complaint, an argument between Grant and Shepard, then 15, turned physical, and they fought in the dining room of the group home. The fight broke up but resumed minutes later when Grant threw a vacuum toward Shepard and Crosby, who was 16.
The three fought. Shepard held his arm around Grant's neck and Crosby punched and kicked Grant, the complaint states. Grant remained on life support for three days before he was pronounced dead from a lack of oxygen to the brain.
Crosby remained quiet for much of the hearing, save for his answers to Manning's questions, but he said he wished things had gone differently the night of the fight.
“I'm very sorry for what I've done and for what happened,” he said.
Crosby said he graduated from high school Thursday while in jail.
Assistant District Attorney Melissa Hong-Barco read the same letter from Grant's mother, Leslie Grant, that she read at Shepard's hearing.
“For Yusuf and Malik, learn from this. Turn it around and do something good, not just in your own lives, but for others as well,” Leslie Grant wrote. “Don't let this be a senseless act of violence and have it end there.”
Megan Guza is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at mguza@tribweb.com.
