13-year-old’s death lands gang member 40 years in prison

A 17-year-old California gang member convicted of gunning down a 13-year-old boy was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years to life in prison.

Richard Satterfield, now 18, turned to the family of Edgar Dewayne Poe, who was shot in the back and killed in March 2006, and said he didn't do it.

"I'm not the shooter in this case. I do plead guilty for not saving the dude (Poe) when I know I could have," Satterfield said in District Judge Donald Mosley's courtroom. He later added, "The dude who did this is still out there."

Satterfield was convicted in July of first-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon.

He opted to have Mosley sentence him rather than put his fate in the hands of the jury that convicted him and go through a penalty hearing.

In exchange, prosecutors agreed not to argue for a sentence of life without the possibility of parole, the maximum allowable by law, said prosecutor Roy Nelson.

"We had a big bad Crip come down from California and he picked on a 13-year-old child," Nelson told the judge.

Police say Poe was walking home March 31 from a party at the Joshua Villas apartments on Cheyenne Avenue near Las Vegas Boulevard when he was shot in the back by Satterfield.

At the party, Poe, who was about 6 feet tall, bragged he could beat up everyone there. The statement angered Satterfield, an alleged member of the Insane Crips, a gang in Long Beach, Calif., according to police.

Satterfield and Poe exchanged words, and Poe left the party and headed toward his family's apartment up the street. Satterfield and several other men pulled up next to him in a car. Satterfield opened fire on Poe as he fled, the police report stated.

"You took the life of an innocent child," Willie Mae Robinson, Poe's mother, told Satterfield. "I have a life sentence that can't be paroled or pardoned."

Poe's father, David Robinson, told Satterfield, "Find God, man," to which Satterfield nodded his head.

Defense attorney Marty Hart urged Mosley to sentence the teenager to 20 to 50 years in prison, the minimum.

Hart denied there was any gang affiliation involved and said his client was not the one who drove after Poe or had brought the gun.

The weapon belonged to another man who pleaded guilty to an accessory charge.

Hart said there were allegations that people at the party were angry at Poe for smoking someone else's marijuana. Hart said a toxicology report showed traces of pot in Poe's blood.