By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A man who admitted to killing a 19-year-old Pace University student in 2008 was found guilty of second-degree murder by a Manhattan jury on Thursday.
The killer, Jeromie Cancel, murdered college student Kevin Pravia in the East 15th Street apartment Pravia shared with a fellow student on Labor Day weekend two years ago.
Cancel had met Pravia in Union Square Park early on the morning of August 30, 2008, although there are various theories why Cancel was in Pravia's apartment in the first place.
The District Attorney said Cancel was there to sell drugs to and rob the victim. Defense attorneys did not explicitly say, but alluded to the possibility, that Pravia had picked up Cancel for a sexual encounter.
Cancel faces 25 years to life on the second-degree murder conviction when he's sentenced on Dec. 10. He could have been found guilty of manslaughter, a lesser crime, if jurors believed he was operating under extreme emotional distress and was driven by his mental illness, as was argued at trial.
Cancel has a documented history, since childhood, of mental and emotional problems, evidence presented at trial showed.
"His intent was to cause the death of Kevin Pravia," Assistant District Attorney Steven Nuzzi said in closing arguments Wednesday morning. "There’s no other explanation for doing all those things."
Cancel's attorney, Michael Alperstein, told jurors "if you're looking for proof and you're looking for justice" then they should find Cancel guilty of manslaughter under the emotional disturbance theory.
Jurors deliberated for less than a day, following the two-week trial.
After the verdict, Pravia's mother, Paula, who gave emotional testimony at the beginning of the trial, thanked police and the district attorney's office "for the great job they all did."
