S. Philly drug dealer resentenced to 25 years to life in prison for 1999 killing of a homicide witness
Felix Summers was resentenced by a judge Thursday in the 1999 shooting death of a witness, Charlotte Presley, in South Philadelphia.
A South Philadelphia drug dealer who was 17 when he gunned down a woman who saw a slaying two months earlier that he later was acquitted of committing was resentenced in court Thursday to 25 years to life in prison.
Felix Summers, now 38, was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder and witness retaliation in the March 1999 slaying of Charlotte Presley, 39, who had told authorities that she saw Summers fatally shoot a man that January at Fifth and Mifflin Streets.
Summers had received an automatic sentence of life in prison after his 2006 conviction, but was granted a resentencing hearing in line with a pair of U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding juvenile lifers.
On Thursday, he told Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey Minehart that he’s not the person he was in 1999 and apologized to the victim’s family for “the senseless murder.”
“It was a cowardly, pathetic act that I did,” he said.
Assistant District Attorney Chesley Lightsey asked Minehart to resentence Summers to 38 years to life in prison, saying “the murder of a witness is, in my opinion, the most serious offense in the interest of justice.”
Lightsey told the judge that Summers in April 2018 wrote to District Attorney Larry Krasner claiming he was innocent in Presley’s death.
No relatives of Presley’s were in the packed courtroom Thursday.
Summers had been arrested and charged in three homicides, but was convicted only in Presley’s death. And it took three trials to get that murder conviction because of jury intimidation, former city prosecutor Carlos Vega testified Thursday.
Vega told Minehart that after the first two juries deadlocked, he asked the judge in the third trial for jurors to be sequestered and anonymous.
Summers admitted to writing the letter to Krasner, but also admitted to Minehart that he killed Presley. He said he understands the seriousness of his crimes.
His older sister, Odessa, told the judge that her brother wants to talk to young people about staying away from drugs and crime. Defense attorney David Santee spoke of his client’s rehabilitation during his 17½ years behind bars.
Summers had been charged in the January 1999 homicide of John Niles, 19, whose fatal shooting Presley witnessed, but was acquitted of that killing at a 2000 trial.
He also was charged in the August 2001 shooting death of Veronica Rios, 15, who was at Fifth and Pierce Streets in South Philadelphia with others when three men drove up. Authorities said Summers was one of two gunmen who emerged from the car and fired into the crowd, killing Rios and injuring five others.
Summers was acquitted in Rios’ slaying after a witness who testified at a preliminary hearing was fatally shot. Rios’ family attended Thursday’s hearing and expressed anger afterward that Summers would only have to spend about eight more years behind bars before he could be considered for parole.
“He’s breathing. He’s seeing his family,” said Rios’ sister, Monica, who asked that her last name be withheld for her safety. “Let them know we’re still in pain.”
Vega, now a private attorney, who was among 31 prosecutors fired by Krasner in January 2018, said it was “difficult for me to believe [Summers has] been rehabilitated.”