AChicago high school drug dealer was given just three years probation and 100 hours community service after pleading guilty to the 2020 murder of a 15-year-old boy during a drug sale gone wrong.
Glenbrook South High School sophomore Elias Valdez was found dead on August 5, 2020, with multiple stab wounds to his chest after police said he took marijuana from a 17-year-old senior without paying.
The drug dealer chased after the boy, and as they fought, he stabbed Valdez multiple times with a utility tool blade.
On Monday, Cook County Judge Steven Bernstein ordered the 17-year-old senior's name not be published because he's a minor but said he was disappointed in the young man's choices.
'I see a child like you who has two parents concerned with his welfare. [You're] a bright kid with a bright future,' Bernstein said.
'I don't think you're a murderer, but you killed this child and you have to live with that for the rest of your life.'
Bernstein also sentenced the teen and his parents to participate in counseling. The judge also offered his condolences to Valdez's family.
'You'll never get closure. I wish I could tell you you will,' he said. 'Your son will be in your heart forever.'
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For more than a year, Valdez's family have urged the county to charge the defendant with first-degree murder and imprison him.
Valdez death was the first murder in the village of Glenview since 2004.
The family held protests outside the Skokie courthouse and Glenview Police Department in 2020, claiming the defendant was benefiting from 'white privilege' after killing Valdez, a Latino, the Daily Herald reported.
In her victim impact statement, Valdez's mother, Marcela Fierros, said she was 'living in a dark tunnel' after her son's death.
'A mother doesn't expect to bury a child so young and much less in such a tragic and overwhelming way,' Fierros wrote.
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'He was only 15 years old and had so many dreams to accomplish. His goals were to graduate from high school, study law enforcement and become a police officer.
'When the defendant stabbed my son, he stabbed the heart of my family,' she wrote.
'My brother didn't deserve to die like this,' the victim's sister, Paola Valdez, told ABC 7.
Defense attorney David Kerstein said there was no incident of white privilege in the case and that the death resulted in the chaos of the violent conflict between the defendant and Valdez.
Kerstein said that Valdez, a rising star on the Glenbrook South High School wrestling team, managed to slam the '97-pound weakling' senior onto the concrete six to 10 times before they began fighting over the utility tool blade.
'It takes two to make a drug deal,' Kerstein said. 'Mr. Valdez was a buyer.'
