By Miharu Sugie
The third man involved in the 2012 murder of Nicholas Martinez in the South End was sentenced Wednesday in Suffolk Superior Court. Raymond Concepcion of Hyde Park faces life in prison with the possibility of parole after a minimum of 20 years for first-degree murder, concurrent with a four to five-year term for his unlawful possession of a firearm.
Concepcion shot Martinez while he was in his car stopped at a red light in the South End. Concepcion then fled in a waiting car. As reported earlier, the other two people involved in the murder, Shakeem Johnson and Jaquan Hill, pleaded guilty last month and were sentenced to five years for their unlawful possession of a firearm and 12 to 14 years for manslaughter.
Nicholas Martinez
Assistant district attorney Jennifer Hickman suggested Concepcion be sentenced to 25 years with the possibility of parole, which is the maximum legally allowed for juveniles convicted of murder. Concepcion’s attorney, John Cunha, suggested 15 years in prison was an appropriate punishment. Judge Jeffrey Locke said in court he must consider the fact that Concepcion, now 18, was a juvenile in 2012.
The jury deliberated for less than a day, a speedy end to the two-week-long trial. As the jury announced their verdict, Concepcion kept his head down.
Pausing in front of Concepcion and Cunha, ADA Hickman read out loud a letter penned by Martinez’s girlfriend to those in the courtroom.
“I was no longer going to marry the man I loved, my best friend, and his family had lost him for good,” Hickman read.“There’s no day that goes by where I don’t think about him. My baby girl will have to grow up without him.”
Martinez’s mother delivered her impact statement amidst her tears.
“My Nico was all about the the family no matter what,” she said. “When I hear the ambulance, when I hear the cruisers… I think of Nico. Nico wasn’t supposed to be killed, Nico wasn’t supposed to die… This pain is never going to go away.”
