Tessa Majors murder suspect confessed to jailed father on recorded line: report
The teen suspect has also been indicted in a separate robbery committed hours before the Majors slaying, authorities say
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The 15-year-old charged with fatally stabbing Barnard student Tessa Majors during a park mugging was caught on a wiretap confessing to his jailed dad, sources told The Post Tuesday — as it emerged that the youngster has been indicted in yet another vicious robbery.
Before he was arrested in the Dec. 11, 2019, slaying, Rashaun Weaver allegedly spilled his guts to his father, Clifford Weaver, in a conversation that was picked up on a recorded prison phone line at the Mohawk Correctional Facility, where the elder Weaver was being held on a parole violation.
“The defendant stated in substance that he was in the park and tried to take the girl’s phone and ‘she was hanging onto her phone’ and that he hit her with a knife,” said court papers, describing the conversation.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}TESSA MAJORS CASE: TEENAGER, 14, ARRESTED IN THE MURDER OF BARNARD COLLEGE STUDENT, NYPD ANNOUNCES
A grand jury has indicted the younger Weaver and his pal, Keith Bond, 14, for a Valentine’s Day robbery committed hours before Weaver was arrested for Majors’ murder.
At about 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 14, 2020, Weaver, Bond and two others allegedly beat and robbed a man in East Harlem, according to a complaint.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The unnamed man showed up outside 65 E. 112th St. purportedly to buy a cellphone from Bond. Instead, the victim was ambushed.
The 15-year-old charged with fatally stabbing Barnard student Tessa Majors during a park mugging was caught on a wiretap confessing to his jailed dad, sources said.
Weaver, his face obscured by a black ski mask, approached the victim and allegedly asked him if he had any weed. Then Weaver and Bond — joined by two unidentified suspects — chased after the man and pummeled him in the head and face before stealing his cellphone, $130 and his shoes, the complaint states.
The victim suffered two black eyes and bruising to his nose and cheeks, court papers say.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Hours after the brazen robbery, Weaver was taken into custody at his home in East Harlem and charged with Majors’ murder.
He already knew he was a suspect in the slaying of the college freshman from Charlottesville, Virginia. Six weeks earlier, authorities had questioned him about the case but released him without charges.
BARNARD STUDENT'S SUSPECTED KILLER, 13, DENIED RELEASE
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Prosecutors allege that Weaver and co-defendant Luchiano Lewis, who were 14 at the time, and Zyairr Davis, then 13, tried to mug Majors in Morningside Park.
After she yelled for help, Lewis allegedly held Majors, 18, in a headlock, while Weaver repeatedly stabbed her in the torso, sending the feathers of her down coat flying into the air.
In a videotaped confession, Davis told authorities the trio had gone to the park that night looking to rob someone.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Davis, who was tried as a juvenile, copped to one count of first-degree robbery in June and was sentenced to 18 months in detention.
Weaver and Lewis, who are being tried as adults, also face charges for the alleged knife-point robbery of a stranger’s cellphone in Morningside Park just four days before Majors’ murder, according to court papers.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The younger Weaver appears to have followed in his dad’s footsteps.
Clifford Weaver was locked up in 2001 for 2 1/2 years on a second-degree robbery conviction, according to public records. In 2005, he spent a little over a year behind bars for attempted criminal possession of a controlled substance. In 2008, he was back in the slammer for five years on second-degree robbery and criminal possession of a controlled substance raps.
In 2017, he was sent back to prison on a drug charge. After his release, he was locked up again on a parole violation, and that’s when he had the damning phone conversation with his son, public records show.
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Clifford Weaver, who was was released from prison March 12, managed to persuade Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s high-powered attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, to take his son’s case pro bono.
“I don’t discuss the evidence at this point of the case, but regardless, it doesn’t change the fact he was a 14-year-old boy charged with crimes that the state is now looking to put him in jail potentially for life,” said Lichtman.