BRONX DA: 18-TO-LIFE FOR $35 DRUG DEBT MURDER

$35 DRUG DEBT LEADS TO MURDER

Alexis Sanchez Sentenced to 18-to-Life in Parkchester Alleyway Killing

(Bronx, NY––March 20, 2015) – Bronx County District Attorney Robert Johnson announces the sentencing of 31-year-old ALEXIS SANCHEZ to 18-years-to life in prison for the murder of 42-year old STEPHEN MARI.

Following a two-week-long jury trial, a jury found SANCHEZ guilty on February 11^th of:

Murder in the 2^nd Degree (Class A Felony)

Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the 2^nd Degree (Class C Violent Felony)

Bronx Supreme Court Justice Margaret Clancy sentenced SANCHEZ to 18-to-life for the murder, to run concurrently with a sentence of ten years (plus five years post-release supervision) for the weapons conviction.

STEVEN MARI’s family members delivered emotional victim impact statements to the Court.  “My father was in no sense of the word a perfect citizen,” said his son STEVEN MARI, JR., noting that the victim struggled with substance abuse.  “He was, however, a father to his children, a husband to his wife, a son to his mother – and no one has the right to violently end the life of another human being.”  Addressing ALEXIS SANCHEZ directly, he implored, “Give up the self-defense pipe dream…God have mercy on your soul, but God has no mercy on murderers!”

NATALIE MARI, the victim’s sister, spoke about the family’s pain during the trial – “As I sat through the horrific details of the brutal murder of my baby brother, I felt as if my heart was being ripped out of my chest.  The defendant did not show one iota of sorrow or remorse…My family, friends and I will be forever scarred.”

SANCHEZ was a graduate of St. Raymond’s High School in the Bronx and employed as a computer tech at Goldman Sachs.  But by November 2, 2011 he had been out of that job for a few weeks and looking to score heroin from his regular dealer, Stephen Mari.

SANCHEZ was going to be $35 short on a $180 drug deal. So he lured Mari into the alleyway between 1523 and 1525 Purdy Street near Parkchester. That’s where he took a .380 semi-automatic handgun and shot at Mari eight times, hitting him with six of those bullets, severing his victim’s spleen, intestines, lung, spinal cord,  with one of those bullets entering the 42-year-old father’s head and brain.

The shooter then left his dealer to die in that alleyway, which was just a half block from his old high school. Speeding off in his mother’s SUV, SANCHEZ would remain at large for another nine months, thinking he’d gotten away with murder.  Once under arrest, SANCHEZ gave a video statement to Bronx Assistant D.A. Joshua Gradinger in which he recreated his version of the events with Detective Robert Schlosser of the 43^rd Precinct (still from video below).

At trial, ALEXIS SANCHEZ claimed Mari had kidnapped him because of the money shortfall, that the dealer had pulled a gun, and that he had wrestled it from the much larger man, reluctantly firing eight times. But those facts were refuted by a forensic pathologist who took the stand and other testimony during trial, and ultimately disbelieved by the jury.

The case against ALEXIS SANCHEZ was prosecuted by Bronx Assistant District Attorney Joshua Gradinger of Trial Bureau 30/40.