Man sentenced in slaying

Erica D. Johnson

Friday, Feb. 21, 2003 | 11:25 a.m.

A black Las Vegas man was sentenced to 6 to 20 years in prison this morning in connection with the killing of a white man defense attorneys say tried to mow the man's friends down with a truck.

An emotional hearing surrounded 19-year-old Usman Sadiq's sentencing as family members of Sadiq and Kristopher Gregory told Judge Sally Loehrer how Gregory's January 2002 beating death changed their lives.

Police say Sadiq got into a fight with Gregory, 21, and Jesse Covington, 24, after the two men sped through the parking lot of the Sundance Village Apartments near Rainbow and Charleston boulevards. Gregory was driving the truck that struck one of Sadiq's friends and plowed through a block wall.

Gregory was beaten to death with a brick from a wall.

Loeher sentenced Sadiq to six to 20 years in prison and ordered him to pay $10,000 in restitution.

"No one really knows what they would do if they were run over and their dear friend was being drug by a truck," Loehrer said. "But two wrongs don't make a right."

Thomas Gregory, the victim's father, asked Loehrer to send a message to Las Vegans of all races, telling them it is wrong to take the law into their own hands.

"If my son did wrong that night, what gives this man the right to play judge, jury and executioner?" he asked. "He made a concerted effort to pick up an object and smash my son's brains out."

Sadiq in December pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter with use of a deadly weapon and battery with a deadly weapon in the incident that left Gregory dead and Covington critically injured.

In exchange for Sadiq's guilty plea, prosecutors dropped an attempted murder with use of a deadly weapon charge.

Chief Deputy District Attorney David Schwartz said prosecutors offered the deal because they were not sure exactly what happened the night of the incident.

Sadiq's attorney, Alzora Jackson, argued for probation, saying Gregory was a racist who instigated the fight, calling Sadiq and his friend racist names.

She showed Loehrer autopsy photos of Gregory showing tattoos of an iron cross and a swastika, and another that read, "Proud, Loud and White."

"They were perpetuating hatred, things no one has a right to do in a free society," she said. "These people went around our community basically terrorizing people."

Gregory had a blood alcohol level of 0.14 when he was tested hours after the incident, she said.

"That much hatred and that much alcohol cause these kind of accidents to happen," she said.

But Thomas Gregory denied his son was a racist, saying his son befriended people of all ethnicities.

He said the tattoos could have been due to an altercation his son had in grade school.

"A black child beat the hell out of him in the sixth grade," he said. "My son was expelled. The black child got five days of suspension."

Friends and family members of Sadiq who testified described Sadiq as a quite gentleman who never had a history of violence.

They said Sadiq was the breadwinner of the family as the owner of an ice cream truck business in Las Vegas.

"If my son goes to prison, you can also take my life," said his mother, Kisu Sadiq, a former corrections officer. "I've lost everything. Now I'm fighting for my life."

Frances Price, Sadiq's former teacher at Rancho High School, said Sadiq was intelligent and only got into trouble once during his four years at the school.