A New York High School student who lashed out at his principal after being told to turn down his music was sentenced on Sept. 22.
Nineteen-year-old Luis Penzo was sentenced with a conditional discharge on Friday, which means he can forgo time in prison and a criminal record as long as he stays out of trouble for three years, the New York Post reported.
During the hearing, Judge Edwina Richardson-Mendelson said she was “very proud” of the 19-year-old for completing a family therapy program.
Penzo assaulted his principal, Dr. Matthew Tossman of Manhattan Early College School for Advertising, last October and was charged with assault.
“He grabbed my Beats and was very aggressive so I lost control,” Penzo admitted, according to the court documents quoted by the New York Post. “I hit him two times,” he confessed.
Tossman asked Penzo to turn down his music, but he refused and dropped his music-blaring headphones, prosecutors said. Tossman then tried to remove them. Penzo then punched his principal twice, ABC News reported. The confrontation left Tossman with a cut that needed seven stitches.
Penzo’s attorney said last year that the teen lost control after his mother died of a brain aneurysm in 2015.
The Post reported that the teen offered no apology for beating up Tossman.
In August of this year, a 16-year-old student shoved, then repeatedly punched, his teacher in a high school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, according to local station Fox 6. Police said the circumstances were unknown.
Friends Read Free