A man accused by federal prosecutors of shooting a 6-year-old boy and playing a role in the kidnapping murder of a Newark-area woman received a life sentence Tuesday.
The sentencing of Dion Oliver closes, for now, the long-running prosecutions that encompassed the murder of Keyonna Perkins, as well as a sprawling drug racketeering case involving dozens of defendants in state court.
Oliver was found guilty by a federal jury last year of charges including stalking and kidnapping resulting in the death of Perkins, as well as the maiming of a boy who was 6 when a bullet prosecutors said was fired by Oliver pierced his face and lodged in his spine.
Delaware Online/The News Journal covered in detail the state’s case against the men they say were involved in the events that led to that shooting in 2019.
The state case: A boy’s shooting was the first step in toppling a Wilmington drug ’empire’
This is a rundown of the case, how it came about and what happened with the defendants:
A deadly feud
Testimony and court documents detail the shootings were the product of a deadly rivalry between Oliver’s friends and Markevis Stanford – a feud court testimony said entailed a pistol-whipping, a stolen chain, kidnapping, cyberstalking, shootouts, and ultimately a bounty on Stanford’s head.
Prosecutors in the state case and in the federal case offered different origin stories for the feud, but said it escalated when Stanford robbed Teres Tinnin and Michael Pritchett, men who would become Oliver’s co-defendants in the case.
State prosecutors accused Dwayne White of attempted murder for allegedly upping an existing bounty on Stanford’s head, charges of which a jury ultimately acquitted him. He was found guilty of seeking to bribe the parents of the boy who was maimed, as well as a raft of drug charges that he did not contest in court.
The feud ultimately came to a head on June 6, 2017. Prosecutors said that morning Oliver, Tinnin, and Pritchett joined with associates Ryan Bacon, Maurice Cooper and Dontae Sykes and stalked Perkins at a Newark-area apartment complex due to her association with Stanford.
They eventually kidnapped Perkins, putting her in the trunk of a car and using her phone to stalk Stanford further.
They shot at him as he walked along Route 896. Later that day, Oliver and Pritchett would botch another assassination attempt in Wilmington when they shot the 6-year-old, prosecutors said. That same day, Sykes and Bacon drove Perkins to Maryland where she was shot multiple times.
Oliver’s sentencing
Oliver was the only one of the original five indicted in federal court to go to trial. The jury’s verdict left the judge no other choice but to sentence him to life in prison. In court documents, prosecutors said Oliver held Perkins at gunpoint during her kidnapping.
Perkins’ mother testified at Thursday’s hearing, calling it “bittersweet.”
“I do still pray for you as I pray for myself,” she said, turning to face Oliver.
Oliver was also the one who fired on Stanford in Wilmington, striking the 6-year-old, prosecutors wrote in court documents. The boy’s family had testified in previous trials and hearings but did not speak at Oliver’s sentencing.
In court, prosecutors said the boy will never walk, talk or play sports.
“They lost their little boy that day,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Eli Klein told the court.
Oliver did not address the court during the hearing. A number of his family and friends attended. His uncle, former City Councilman Norman Oliver, wrote a letter to the judge asking for mercy that the judge could not offer.
“You ruined people’s lives,” said Judge Joshua D. Wolson. “That should be the first thing you think about every morning and the last thing you think about at night.”
Other federal defendants
Oliver is the last of five total defendants in federal court to be sentenced.
Bacon was accused of being one of the two defendants that drove Perkins to Maryland where she was murdered. He took a plea deal and was sentenced to 30 years last year.
In court documents, prosecutors said they were prepared to convince the jury that Bacon executed Perkins. Replying in his own court submission, his attorney pointed a finger at Bacon’s codefendant, Sykes, as the shooter.
Sykes was the primary witness that sparked the federal case and parallel state prosecution. He agreed to cooperate with police, took a plea deal and was sentenced to 15 years in prison after testifying in both the state drug racketeering trial against Dwayne White and Oliver’s federal trial. In court filings, his defense attorney said it was his cooperation that sparked the case.
In court documents, Bacon’s attorney wrote that Sykes was actually Perkins’ executioner and that he lied to federal investigators in pointing a finger at Bacon.
Pritchett was accused of being present during both the kidnapping and stalking of Perkins as well as when Oliver inadvertently shot the 6-year-old. Pritchett pleaded to multiple crimes and was sentenced to 25 years in prison last year.
Pritchett has asked the court to vacate his plea deal, making claims that state prosecutors did not fully disclose to him payments made to a witness that was in a protection program. He said that knowledge would have changed his decision to take a plea the day he was to go to trial.
Teres Tinnin was not accused of being present for Perkins’ kidnapping or Banner’s shooting but was in communication with his co-defendants during the process. Prosecutors wrote in court documents he was a “full-fledged participant in the plan,” and put up money to have Stanford killed.
He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in prison earlier this year.
The case against Maurice Cooper was dismissed. Cooper, 41, was already serving a 75-year sentence for state court convictions after being arrested in January 2018 on heroin trafficking and gun charges, when the case against him was dropped.
Contact Xerxes Wilson at (302) 324-2787 or xwilson@delawareonline.com. Follow @Ber_Xerxes on Twitter.
