A Buffalo teenager was sentenced Wednesday in Erie County Court to 3½ to 10 years in state prison for fatally shooting a man in 2022 when the teen was 14 years old.
A jury found Johnomar Sustache, now 16, guilty in January of first-degree manslaughter and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon charges, according to the Erie County District Attorney’s Office.
Sustache was accused of shooting 24-year-old Morrell Buster Jr. in the neck with an illegal gun on June 26, 2022, in the 100 block of Spaulding Avenue in South Buffalo. The weapon used to shoot Buster was not recovered.
The jury acquitted Sustache of second-degree murder after about two hours of deliberation following the four-day trial.
Sustache claimed he acted in self-defense, which the prosecution denied, insisting that the teen’s claim flew in the face of the evidence.
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Sustache was sitting in the driver’s seat of a car parked on Spaulding about 12:20 a.m. when Buster walked up to the vehicle. Buster and family members were attending a party about nine houses away, according to prosecutors.
Sustache was inside the car smoking marijuana, something he had done daily since age 11, his defense attorney, Michael L. D’Amico, told jurors in his closing argument.
Although it was not established during the trial what was said between Sustache and the victim, the situation escalated, according to Sustache’s version of events, and he got scared. Buster ordered him out of the car, shouting more loudly as time passed.
Sustache said Buster had a gun, but none was found by police.
The incident, including the flash from a .40-caliber pistol, was captured by video surveillance from a nearby building. It showed that Sustache fired twice at Buster, with the first shot entering through the base of the front of his neck, hitting his carotid artery and exiting from his back, according to the prosecution.
Sustache’s second shot, after Buster retreated, missed.
Based on the video, Buster was shot 49 seconds after he approached the driver’s side of the car, according to the prosecution.
During the trial, the prosecution described Sustache as a “trigger-happy 14-year-old” who thought it was “cool to possess loaded handguns.” However Sustache told jurors that he had recently been the victim of a gunpoint robbery and was fearful of Buster.