Man sentenced a second time in ‘senseless’ slaying

Six years have passed since Laura Ginoulias had to bury her teenage son.

On Monday, she watched for the second time as JonMichael Ginoulias' killer was sentenced to prison.

After Donald Schuster was sentenced to 12 to 30 years in prison, Laura Ginoulias said her emotions and thoughts remain conflicted.

"I don't ever want to forgive him," she said.

Laura Ginoulias knows Schuster has a child of his own who will be deprived of a father while he sits in prison. However, "I don't have mine, why should he have his?"

During the hearing, Schuster apologized to the family for their pain and loss.

Laura Ginoulias said later, "Maybe he can change, evolve. I still want him to be locked up."

The second sentencing was a long time coming. Schuster, a felon from New Jersey, was convicted in the 2006 fatal shooting five years ago and received a sentence of 20 years to life in prison. However, the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the verdict because a judge didn't give the jury proper instructions.

Then in April, before his second trial, Schuster struck a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon.

Senior District Judge J. Charles Thompson called the crime "senseless."

Laura Ginoulias told Thompson, "Jail could never be as horrible as me having to feel this huge hole in my heart forever. He was all of me, he made me whole. Now I am lost and not complete."

JonMichael Ginoulias, 16, was shot the morning of Jan. 22, 2006, during a brawl outside Schuster's northwest Las Vegas home.

Schuster, then 29, and brother Mark Strycharz, then 22, got into a fight with a group of teenagers at the house next door on Windycliff Court, near Charleston and Rampart boulevards.

Tension had been growing between the two households over late-night parties at the house where Bradley Franklin, then 17, lived. When Franklin, Nicholas Errichetto, then 17, and JonMichael Ginoulias pulled up after getting smoothies, the two groups started arguing and trading punches. The fight edged toward the front door of Schuster's house.

Strycharz fought with the teens and fell through a backyard gate. Meanwhile, Schuster went inside to retrieve a 9 mm, semiautomatic handgun. He emerged from his front door, which faces the gate, and started shooting, authorities said.

Strycharz was not charged in connection with the 2006 shooting. Records show he is incarcerated on unrelated charges in New Jersey.

Franklin, now 23, attended the hearing. He is working as a courier for a Las Vegas law firm while pursuing his goal of becoming a firefighter.

Contact reporter Francis McCabe at fmccabe@review journal.com or 702-380-1039.