Camden Mayor takes plea deal, steps down after day in court
DOVER, Del. – Camden Mayor Justin King Tuesday entered a plea with the Delaware Department of Justice in a case that centered on an alleged incident between King and 3 young men at a car wash owned by King.
In a statement to 47ABC Delaware Attorney General Kathleen Jennings told 47ABC “Nobody is above the law or beneath justice,” adding:
“The problem with the defendant’s behavior is not just the charges themselves, but his troubling and frankly embarrassing display of aggression, irresponsibility, and disregard for the law. His decision to physically confront two teenagers was senselessly aggressive, and he is extremely lucky that the victims’ injuries were not more severe. As if that were not bad enough, he then almost immediately stonewalled the subsequent investigation. Mr. King’s actions and lack of self-control are not the behavior of a grownup, and certainly not the mayor of a town.”
King pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts of Hindering the Prosecution and Disorderly Conduct, and pleaded no contest to Misdemeanor Offensive Touching.
As part of the Plea, he is forced to step down as mayor, pay a 500-dollar fine, serve one year of unsupervised probation, and was ordered to have no contact with the victims.
The judge Tuesday noted that the recommended sentence in the case was one year in 60 days behind bars
The sentence stems from a February incident where Ehlmadi Boukhres, Christian Chordas, and Devan Ripoll pulled into the car wash owned by King.
King in court Tuesday said he thought the three looked suspicious because they were wearing hoodies and approached the car leading to what his lawyer described as an unfortunate skirmish that “never should have happened.”
King addressed the judge, not Ehlmahdi Boukhres and Christian Chordas who was in court that day, and apologized to the court for being there “under these circumstances.”
The Central Delaware NAACP say they’re glad King had his day in court, as the initial handling of the case had them skeptical the case would even get this far.
“Mr. King was not arrested nor properly booked by the Camden Police Department on the night of the incident, even as the reported assailant,’ said NAACP President Fleur Mckendell.
Mckendell tells 47ABC the victims approached her organization who then appealed to the DOJ to have them take over the case.
“We are demanding that the Department of Justice promptly release all body camera and surveillance footage of the incident, as well as all records and testimonies related to the six-month-long investigation of the incident,” McKendell said calling the sentence far too lenient.
“These charges started off as several felonies, several misdemeanors, down to a felony, some misdemeanors, and then we landed at three misdemeanors,” she said.
Mckendell is also calling on the town of Camden to clarify its continuity of government, now that King has stepped down from his role as Mayor.
She tells us a town clerk referred here to the charter that only listed the conditions under which a Mayor would be removed, and does not specify the next person to govern should that happen.
Mckendell says that victims in the case have retained additional counsel and plan on taking further steps beyond the DOJ case.
47ABC reached out to Justin King and Attorney Steven Wood who declined to comment.
