A Baltimore man captured on video kicking a shop owner in the head during the April 2015 rioting was sentenced Wednesday to 70 months in federal prison in connection with burning a store.
Trevon Green, 24, pleaded guilty in July after authorities said he encouraged others to set fire to the Jolly Food Mart in the 1500 block of N. Monroe St. on April 27, 2015. According to the plea agreement, Green said "f—— the police, f—— the government" on the video and that he and others set the store on fire for Freddie Gray.
Gray died after suffering severe spinal injuries in the back of a police van. Rioting, looting and arson broke out on the day of his funeral.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Judson Thomas Mihok played the widely circulated video of Green kicking the owner of another shop that was being ransacked by looters before Green went to the Jolly Food Mart, which has not reopened. He said the video showed Green's true character.
"It's just unspeakable," Mihok told U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett.
The judge ruled that 22 months of Green's federal sentence would run concurrently with an eight-year sentence Green is serving for an unrelated gun arrest in Baltimore in October 2015, six months after the rioting. The remaining four years of his federal sentence will run consecutive to — after — the state sentence, Bennett ruled.
The minimum mandatory sentence required for the federal arson charge is 60 months.
Green's attorney, Teresa Whalen, had asked for leniency on her client and for his federal sentence to be served along with his current state sentence.
Whalen spoke about Green's troubled childhood, describing how Green came from a broken home, dropped out of school when he was 12, had his first of four children at 13 and bounced around the juvenile system, where he received various charges. She said he lacked stability in life, and noted that at one point he had been living in an abandoned building.
"I'm not here to justify anything, your honor," Green's mother, Nicole Raikes, told the judge before saying her son suffered from the affects of lead poisoning as a child and that the mother of his youngest child was killed in a 2013 shooting.
Raikes said Green, like others on the day of the rioting, was acting out of anger. "Maybe he will learn from his mistakes," she said.
"Everybody was upset that day," said Brittany Brown, the mother of Green's three oldest children. "He's a good family man."
Both women shook their head in agreement when Whalen also noted to the judge that others charged with similar crimes during the riots received lesser sentences, five and four years, and that police had not charged more individuals though more were involved with looting and burning during the rioting.
Behind them in the courtroom, Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein sat listening to the sentencing.
When the judge asked Green if he wanted to speak, Green replied: "No."
"That doesn't surprise me," said Bennett, adding that Green showed "arrogance and defiance. … You haven't learned a thing from this."
The judge told Green he showed continued disrespect toward him, including looking down as the judge spoke to him.
Green smiled slightly as he was led off by U.S. marshals in handcuffs.
Four other men facing federal charges of arson during the rioting have pleaded guilty. Three have been sentenced to 15, five and four years for their convictions. Gregory Butler Jr., who pleaded guilty to cutting a fire hose outside the Penn-North CVS, is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 20.
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