Deonte Lamont Rasul-Chiono jumped with both feet and the full force of his 275 pounds on the head of Lonnie Johnson as the 53-year-old homeless man lay unconscious, helpless and bleeding heavily from his head on the pavement in the 2200 block of I Street on Sept. 14.
The Auburn Reporter has learned after numerous inquiries that the 18-year-old Kent man pleaded guilty to second-degree assault in November and received three months in jail.
But with credit for time served, a requirement of state law, Rasul-Chiono was released from the King County Jail on Nov. 1, the day he received his sentence.
Auburn police also had arrested a 19-year-old woman and a 19-year-old man in connection with the beating. They were never charged, so the Reporter will not name them.
Medics took Johnson to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle in a coma. He survived his injuries and was later released. His whereabouts are unknown.
Ian Goodhew, a spokesman for the King County Prosecutor’s Office, said the wide disparity between the sentencing range for second-degree assault — three to nine months — and first-degree assault — nine years in prison — “has always been a bugaboo with us. The difference is that for first-degree assault you have to be able to show permanent bodily injury.”
Doctors said Johnson’s injuries did not appear to be debilitating on the day he was released from the hospital, but there was no way to assess the long-term effect.
“We did not have sufficient injuries to allow us to file an assault 1 charge,” Goodhew said. “The standard range for assault 2 for a person with no felony criminal history is three to nine months. We agreed to three months in exchange for a plea as charged. The most we would have been able to get was nine months. The judge followed the recommendation,” Goodhew said.
According to Auburn Police Detective Anna Weller’s account, filed with charging papers, an officer responded at about 12:18 a.m. to a report of a man lying face down in the street and several people kicking him. The officer found Johnson next to a pool of blood with blood dripping from his head and an egg-sized lump on the left side of his face. He was shaking, unconscious and making guttural noises.
A witness told police she had been in her home when she heard two men yelling, looked outside, noticed Johnson lying in the street and asked another person to call 911. She then saw what she believed to be a man in fitted blue jeans approach Johnson then stomp and kick his head before running north on 22nd Street Northeast.
According to the police account, a second witness then looked out of a window and saw a man in a red shirt and dark pants jump into the air and land on Johnson’s head with both feet.
Both assailants then fled in a boxy, gold, older sedan with a flat tire. An officer soon located a car driving in the 3900 block of Auburn Way South that matched the description, with a flat tire on the front passenger side. The car pulled into a parking lot, and the occupants left the vehicle and began to walk away before the officer ordered them to return and sit on the curb.
The first witness positively identified the car, and the second witness positively identified Rasul-Chiono as the man who had jumped on Johnson’s head. Officers allegedly found what appeared to be dried blood on the inside of his right shoe. Rasul-Chiono allegedly denied any knowledge in the assault. But according to the police account, the second man said he had seen him standing over the victim at the scene.
The woman, whose hair was covered by a hood, was the only person among the three wearing light blue fitted jeans, which matched the suspect seen kicking and stomping Johnson’s head. She, too, denied any knowledge of the assault. The second man allegedly admitted they were all present at the assault but denied his own involvement.
According to charging papers, Rasul-Chiono has prior convictions for first-degree criminal trespassing, possession of drugs and vehicle prowling.
