Honor student punched to death

A 13 year-old honor student from East Elmhurst, who died from a beating at the hands of a self-described “friend,” was laid to rest in the Dominican Republic late last month.
The “friend,” who authorities say is a “schoolyard bully” and allegedly has ties to the youth gang, “All About The Money,” is also 13, and was charged with manslaughter.
The victim, Guarionex Montas, and his half-brother, Jose Cepeda, 15, left P.S. 127 after classes on Friday, March 23 to play basketball in the schoolyard, located at 99th Street and 25th Avenue.
There, according to published reports, Montas got into a “consensual slapping match” with another student at the school, which is a magnet school for Science and Aerospace.
The suspect, whose name was not released because of his age, then allegedly punched Montas several times in the head, knocking him down. Although Montas claimed to be hurt and asked his assailant to stop, when Montas got up, the suspect punched him once more in the head, knocking him down again, according to reports.
The boys went home about 5:10 p.m. and Montas went to bed, complaining of a headache and nausea. He told his mother, Lourdes Cepeda, 35 and stepfather, Herbert Guardado, 41, that it was due to a bad school lunch.
That evening, Montas woke up, took some aspirin and went back to bed, according to published reports. Family members who suspected nothing until just before midnight, when they found he was bleeding from the nose and mouth. Guardado and Cepeda rushed their young son to Elmhurst Hospital, where doctors found he had a fractured skull and swelling of the brain. Montas was pronounced dead at 10 a.m. the next morning, March 24.
Witnesses, including his brother, first claimed that Montas suffered a head injury while playing basketball. After attending his brother’s funeral in their native country on Thursday, March 29, however, the guilt-ridden Cepeda told his family that he “didn’t want to get the other boys in trouble,” and related the story to them, which he later repeated to police.
After an investigation by detectives, the suspect came to the 115th Precinct on Northern Boulevard in Jackson Heights, where he was arrested.
At a Family Court hearing in Jamaica, city lawyer Theresa Wilson told the court that the suspect “slipped into gang mode,” during the incident. She also said that Cepeda told investigators the suspect threatened to hurt him if he didn’t say Montas was hurt while the boys were playing around.
Police say the suspect is large for his age and has a reputation for being a violent bully with ties to the gang. Authorities claim that the suspect has been suspended from school twice, and produced copies of his MySpace homepage, showing him making gang signs.
Those close to the suspect disagree completely.
According to his lawyer, Thomas Burrows, “He’s not a bully. He doesn’t intimidate anybody.” Burrows claims that the suspect’s MySpace profile has been inactive for a year. His father, Steven Morris, told Wilson at the hearing she was “dead wrong” about his son.
Kendall Boulai, 12, a friend of the suspect, quoted him as saying, “I hit him [Montas] with my fist, but I didn’t want to hurt him because he was my friend. It was an accident.”
Boulai said, “I feel sorry for him. He said he was going to regret it for the rest of his life.”