Two brothers accused of stabbing 23-year-old Christopher Borgella outside the DoubleTree Hotel in Dorchester in 2014 have been convicted of second-degree murder and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
Harold Coleman, 28, and Shawn Coleman, 24, both of the South End, were convicted on Monday, May 16 and sentenced on Tuesday, May 24. A judge sentenced each man to a mandatory life in prison with the possibility of parole after 15 years. Harold Coleman was also convicted of malicious destruction of property over $250.
The brothers were arrested in July of 2014 for their role in Borgella’s death in the early morning hours of March 1.
Borgella was with a group of friends at a party inside a room at the DoubleTree, and the Colemans were with another group of friends at the same party. After a fight broke out between the two groups, hotel employees asked them to leave. According to a statement from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office:
Once outside, the two groups became involved in another physical altercation in the hotel parking lot. Evidence proved that the defendants attacked Borgella’s group in the parking lot, with Shawn Coleman wielding a knife and Harold Coleman a detachable steering wheel. Borgella suffered a fatal stab wound in that attack, and another man suffered non-fatal injuries.
At Tuesday’s sentencing, prosecutors read a victim impact statement that Borgella’s mother wrote:
We pride ourselves on being all that we can be to show our kids down all the right paths. My son will never get to pursue his dreams of playing professional basketball, nor will he ever get a chance at marriage, he will never get to have his own children and instill the word of God, education and determination in them as I did in him. Sleepless nights, depression, anxiety all things that have come with this tragedy … my life will never and could never be the same.
