Demarcus Smith, 19, reads his apology in court Wednesday for his involvement in the beating of an MGM employee. Photo by Gary Thompson. Avery Slocume Defendant admits assault and apologizes in court

Two of the teens who pleaded guilty last year to felonies related to the Easter weekend crime spree that included the beating of an MGM employee were sentenced to prison Wednesday.

In December, Avery Slocume and Demarcus Smith, both 19, agreed to plead guilty to reduced charges related to the nationally publicized assaults.

District Judge Elizabeth Halverson sentenced Slocume to two to five years for one felony count of battery, and she sentenced Smith to four to 20 years in prison for five battery- and robbery-related felonies.

"There was no reason for me to be out there causing harm. ... I was trying to be known," Smith said in court before he was sentenced.

He told investigators about his involvement in the April 15 beating of a Wal-Mart employee on West Craig Road in North Las Vegas, the beating at the MGM and the April 16 theft of items from a Green Valley Grocery store on Vegas Drive near Tenaya Way, and he admitted being with a group that beat and robbed people observing Lent at Pioneer Park, where one of the victims was shot in the back.

All of the crimes were carried out by a mob of young people. In all of the cases, there were at least 10 of them, and in the case at the MGM parking garage, there were more than 20 people.

The teens' lawyers tried to show the judge that their clients had taken responsibility for their poor choices and that their behavior that weekend was an anomaly for the high school students.

Smith, a former cashier at McDonald's and the father of a baby girl, told the judge that spending the past 10 months in jail made him realize he wants to be known by his community as an upstanding citizen. He wants to "get a good job, and someday have a wife," he said.

He and Slocume were soft-spoken in court and apologized for their involvement in the beating of MGM maintenance supervisor Richard Markwell Jr., who has permanent damage to his jaw and shoulder.

Markwell told Halverson she needed to send a message to parents, who should know where their children go and who their friends are. He said that if the teens' parents were like his own, who took him into their house and cared for him after the beating and have attended every court appearance with him, the teens wouldn't have been on a rampage.

Markwell noted that the beating will affect his parenting too, but in a different way. "I realize I may never throw a baseball with my son, like my dad did for me," he said.

Before the beating, Markwell, a former college baseball player, was a Basic High School varsity pitching baseball coach, but his injuries forced him to give that up too, he said.

"I'm happy with the sentencing," he said outside the courtroom. "I'm glad they all got jail time."

Markwell, who was 23 at the time of the beating, was sitting in a landscaping cart on the edge of the MGM parking garage when a group of passing teenagers attacked him.

The hotel's video surveillance showed a mob punching and kicking Markwell. He tried to run away, but they knocked him down and began beating him with belts.

"I hit the man," Slocume said as he apologized in court.

Slocume's defense attorney, Jennifer Bolton, asked Halverson for probation for her client, emphasizing his good behavior since bailing out of jail in December.

He had returned to his old job at Burger King, working from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. five days a week, and went home every day, where he cared for his younger siblings, ages 14 and 9, while his mother, Vanessa Brooks, worked.

Halverson, a new judge who recently got the case, said she would not give Slocume probation because the offense was violent.

Outside the courtroom, among Smith's and Slocume's family and friends, Slocume's mother said, "Our boys aren't thugs."

Her son was best friends with Smith, she said, adding, "Demarcus was never disrespectful to me."

She blamed her son's predicament in part on one of his co-defendants, 18-year-old Asryen Brown. "Asryen Brown is a snitch," Brooks said.

Brown agreed to plead guilty in December, too. But he also agreed to testify against the other defendants in the case in exchange for probation. He helped prosecutors secure the conviction of one of his co-defendants, Jamar Rice, on nine felonies and two gross misdemeanors.

Brown is expected to testify against the final Easter spree defendant, Demarcus Smith's brother Dexter Smith Jr., in April, after which Brown will be sentenced.

Even taking Brown's testimony into account, however, the sentences that Halverson gave Slocume and Demarcus Smith were not fair, Brooks said.

"All our boys are going to prison because they're (expletive) black. What about the 311 Boyz?" she said, referring to a gang of nine middle-class white teens who faced similar charges in 2003.

Four of them were sent to jail for a year, but at least one of them was released three months into his sentence.

The comparison between the two groups of teenagers has come up before, along with speculation among some of the defense attorneys that the MGM defendants were treated harshly because Markwell's highly publicized beating reflected poorly on Las Vegas tourism.

Rice's grandmother had similar concerns that her grandson, whom she raised, was over-charged in part because he is black.

District Attorney David Roger, who could not be reached for comment late Wednesday, has previously rebutted such claims.

"We treat each case and each defendant separately," Roger said in December. "We base our decisions on how to handle a case based upon the facts, not based upon their status in the community."