Ex-student admits to stabbing classmate Teen faces prison, may be deported

Newark Star Ledger ^ | 02.16.05

[Coleus]

A former Franklin High School student who stabbed a classmate in the back during a fight in the halls of the school pleaded guilty yesterday to aggravated assault and a weapons charge. 

Fitzgerald Elliot, 17, will face five to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced by Superior Court Judge Paul Armstrong, who heard the plea bargain arrangement yesterday, the day Elliot's trial was to have started. 

In return for pleading guilty to the lesser offenses, prosecutors dropped the most serious charge against him, attempted murder. He faced up to 20 years in prison on that count. 

Assistant Somerset County Prosecutor Thomas Chirichella said Elliot had turned down previous plea offers but accepted this one just as jury selection was to have gotten under way. 

"He was concerned about being deported if he pleaded guilty to an indictable offense," Chirichella said.

****

Elliot was a student at Franklin High and was charged with stabbing another student on the last day of the 2003 school year. Though he initially told authorities he was 19 years old, Clarke said he was able to obtain records from Sierra Leone proving Elliot was only 16 at the time of the stabbing.

Sophomore Teron Fuller suffered a collapsed lung from two stab wounds to his back on June 18, 2003, authorities said. Fuller was stabbed as he attempted to break up a fight in a hallway at Franklin High School just outside the gym, where seniors were rehearsing for graduation ceremonies, police said.

[kizzdogg]

Fitzgerald Elliot, 17, will face five to 10 years in prison

...In a prison outside this country I hope, in his homeland.

I can dream I guess.

[JustAnotherSavage]

"He was concerned about being deported if he pleaded guilty to an indictable offense," Chirichella said.

If he came here illegally, our law says the penalty is deportation. That's only for the crime of entering the country.

[Cultural Jihad]

If he came here illegally, our law says the penalty is deportation. That's only for the crime of entering the country.

Those with work visas, green cards, assylum seekers, etc. who commit felonies can be deported, too.