The Roanoke teenager who was tried as an adult and convicted last summer of fatally shooting a fellow gang member was sentenced to 14 years of incarceration Monday.
Ta Juan M. Johnson, 16, of Roanoke, pleaded guilty to four felony charges in Roanoke Circuit Court on July 13. Police said he was involved in the murder of Jaquice Kearney,
One half of a Roanoke homicide was resolved by plea agreement Monday, just over 18 months after it occurred.
The case centers on the slaying of Savion Scales, a 17-year-old senior at Noel C. Taylor Learning Academy at Oakland, who was fatally shot outside a southwest Roanoke convenience store on Sept. 11, 2019.
At Mondayâs hearing, the first of the two men charged in Scalesâ death â Ozmeik RaeâQuan Clements, 18 â pleaded no contest to murder and to the use of a gun in committing that felony.
Clementsâ plea agreement leaves him with a 33-year sentence, which will be suspended after he serves 18 years â 15 for murder, and three on the gun charge. Through his plea, prosecutors dropped one count of firing into an occupied vehicle, which had carried the prospect of up to 10 years. He will be on probation for a decade after his release.