Anthony Warfield never got to see his second son.
The baby was born after the Brooklyn man died after Jaheel Ryan stabbed him Oct. 10, in Atlantic City.
As Warfield bled on the ground, Ryan rifled through his pockets before leaving the scene, Assistant Prosecutor Louis Casadia said Friday as Ryan was sentenced to three years in prison.
The 28-year-old Burlington County man was never charged with killing Warfield.
Ryan was originally charged with first-degree robbery. He was sentenced Friday on a plea to aggravated assault.
Police originally said that Ryan went up to a group of three men asking about buying a gun. The men then started punching him, and Ryan pulled out a knife. Two men were stabbed. Warfield died following surgery for wound to his chest.
“No one will ever know what transpired that day,” Warfield’s mother told the judge.
What Kisha Thompson does know is the trauma left behind by her son’s death.
“I can’t say that I will ever be able to move past this,” she told Judge Sara Beth Johnson, her voice trembling with emotion. “I can tell you that it’s not easy at all. The pain… it doesn’t seem to get any less. I just feel like some type of justice, your honor, needs to be done. It wasn’t so much a robbery. It was a life that was taken.”
Warfield left behind a grieving fiancée who gave birth after his death, and another young son who Warfield doted on.
“You don’t know what to say to him when he asks, ‘Where’s Daddy?’” Thompson said of her grandson. “You say, ‘Daddy’s in the sky,’ and he asks you, ‘Can you take me to the sky?’ It just breaks our hearts.”
Warfield’s fiancée cries every day, plagued by the grief of loss and post-partum, Thompson said.
Victoria Warfield sent a letter to the judge, but was unable to speak at the sentencing. She wiped away tears several times during the virtual hearing, and at one point left the camera view.
"It was a very tragic and unfortunate event," defense attorney Alex Settle told BreakingAC after the sentencing. "Mr. Ryan was in a physical altercation with three individuals who were physically attacking him," Settle said. "He can be seen on surveillance attempting to get away. At some point, he produced a knife and swung it in their direction. It unfortunately hit the victim in the chest, and he passed away from a single fatal stab wound."
Thompson addressed that scenario during the sentencing.
“If it is viewed as an accident on Mr. Ryan’s part, then why didn’t you stay?” she asked. “Why didn’t you stay to help him? Why didn’t you call an ambulance? And then blatantly decided to rob him at the same time?”
Ryan said he didn’t want to talk about the events that led to the stabbing, but insisted that he feared for his life.
“I just wanted to get back to my wife, my family, too,” said the Burlington County man. “I was out trying to find new friends and everything just went the wrong way in a matter of a minute, and I’m sorry for that.”
He has never been married or had children, the judge noted as she imposed sentence.
“I don’t really want to sound heartless,” Ryan said, “but there’s nothing I can do right now. I gotta take that up with God later.”
Ryan must serve at least 85 percent of his sentence, or a little more than 2½ years. He has been jailed since two days after the stabbing. He will be eligible for parole in less than two years.
