Philly teen agrees to a 25-year sentence for string of carjackings that left a 70-year-old delivery driver dead

A Philadelphia teen has agreed to spend 25 years in federal prison for his role in a string of 2021 carjackings, including one that left a 70-year-old restaurant delivery driver dead.

John Nusslein, 19, was the eldest member of a three-member crew who prosecutors say attacked at least four deliverymen in the span of a month and stole their cars after luring them to locations in Northeast Philadelphia with fake food orders.

The scheme turned fatal on Dec. 2, 2021, when they brutally beat Chung Yan Chin, a 70-year-old driver for the China Royal Restaurant, stole his 2004 Toyota Camry, and left him to die on a Mayfair street.

Nusslein pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy and carjacking resulting in death during a hearing Tuesday in federal court. The deal he struck with prosecutors could spare him a potential life sentence, but must first be approved by U.S. District Judge John M. Younge at a sentencing set for July.

Nusslein’s accomplices — Qiyam Muhammad, 18, and a 14-year-old whom authorities have not publicly identified — were prosecuted in Pennsylvania juvenile court, prosecutors said.

Muhammad was sentenced in June to 17 ½ to 35 years behind bars after pleading guilty to third-degree murder charges, court officials said.

Details of the 14-year-old’s sentence were not immediately available.

“This case is a tragic reminder that carjackings can have deadly consequences,” said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel, whose department investigated the case along with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. “These senseless assault on these food delivery drivers is appalling and unacceptable.”

» READ MORE: Feds charge 6 men in connection with carjacking ring tied to murders, shipping stolen cars to Africa

Since December 2021 — when Nusslein and his crew committed their crimes — the city has experienced a record surge in carjackings and auto thefts, particularly in the Northeast.

In 2021, car owners reported more than 11,000 cases — nearly a 15% increase from the year before.

Last year, those numbers rose to more than double that, with more than 23,000 carjackings or auto theft episodes, making it the worst year for vehicle thefts in the city in 15 years.

Police have blamed much of that activity on carjackers following a pattern similar to that of Nusslein and his crew, who specifically targeted delivery drivers because of the ease with which attackers can lure them to locations of their choosing.

» READ MORE: What we know about Philly’s surge in vehicle thefts

In Chin’s case, Nusslein and his accomplices had placed an order with his restaurant before they approached him, pulled him from his Camry, pummeled him, and left him on the roadside with wounds to his face and injuries to his brain.

It took more than three hours for a passerby to stumble across him and for police to respond. He died from his injuries later that night.

Four days later, they struck again — luring another driver in a 2007 Altima to the 2700 block of Knorr Street before attacking him and stealing his car.

Over the next two weeks, Nusslein and his accomplices would strike two more times, drawing drivers to remote addresses in Bustleton, attacking them, and making off with their vehicles.

In the last, a Dec. 16, 2021, assault, a driver for Empire Szechuan Chinese Restaurant managed to wrestle a gun away from his attackers, but not before they managed to fracture his eye socket.

He survived that attack, and the next day police spotted Nusslein and his accomplices in the delivery driver’s stolen 2016 Infinity XQ5 in Olney and arrested them.

Nusslein has remained in custody since then

“Mr. Nusslein candidly acknowledged responsibility for his conduct by his guilty plea,” his attorney Gina Amoriello said in a statement Thursday. “We believe that the sentence agreed upon by the parties, and hopefully accepted by the court, represents the appropriate balance between the significance of his conduct weighed against the mitigating factors.”