THE BRONX — The high school football player accused of killing his mother's boyfriend early Sunday during a domestic dispute was defending his mom, who suffered years of abuse at her boyfriend's hands, the teen's family and lawyer said.
Luis Moux, 18, was asleep when his mother, Lorena Sesema, and her boyfriend, Stanley Washington, started quarreling in the family's University Avenue apartment near West 183rd Street about 4:30 a.m. Sunday, according to police and relatives.
Moux intervened in the altercation, and during a struggle choked Washington, police said. The Allerton resident was later pronounced dead at North Central Bronx Hospital, police said.
Moux's aunt, Angela Carrasquillo, who was waiting for him to be arraigned on first degree manslaughter charges in the Bronx Criminal Court Tuesday night, vehemently defended her nephew.
"He was defending his mom from years of abuse. That man used to beat that lady constantly. Every other day she would have bruises on her," Carrasquillo said.
She called the high school athlete a "good kid" who has "never been in trouble."
Carrasquillo also claimed Washington had hit Moux's grandmother, Vilmarie Acaba, who walks with a cane.
Family and supporters rallied around the brawny teen, whose Facebook page is full of photos of him in his football pads, at his arraignment Tuesday.
The crowd included Moux's mother, his high school principal, a former football coach and young men wearing football jerseys.
Wearing a black tank top showing a tattoo on his arm, Moux stood in the courtroom with his attorneys as his mother sat crying with her hands clasped near her mouth, as though in prayer. As he was taken back into custody, she shouted, "I love you, papi."
Some sobbed during the proceeding, and many waited for him to emerge from the courthouse once he made the $50,000 bail.
Assistant District Attorney Francis Alberts called the case "a tragedy for all involved" while asking for $100,000 bail.
Defense attorneys echoed the aunt's claim that the young man was defending himself and his mother.
"Luis was not the aggressor here. Luis was a victim, a victim of domestic violence," said Moux's defense attorney, Walter Fields. He said the high school student had "significant injuries from the attack he received" during the altercation.
Moux's mother also has scars and bruises from the boyfriend, Fields said.
"She's also a victim," he said.
The lawyer said Washington has had three domestic charges against him, as well as 27 prior arrests.
"Some animal tried to hurt his mother and he did what any good young man would do," Fields said.
