A Baton Rouge shooter convicted of killing a man during a dispute over stolen drugs will spend the rest of his life in prison, according to a judge’s ruling Wednesday.
Jurors listened to three days of testimony and spent nearly seven hours deliberating to find Maurice Jonta Mallory, 29, guilty of second-degree murder and convicted felon in possession of a gun on May 16.
Mallory shot and killed 37-year-old Sedrick Lewis outside a ground-level room at the FairBridge Inn Express in December 2022, prosecutors said. The rundown lodge in the 11300 block of Boardwalk Drive is one of several hotels off of Sherwood Forest Boulevard that law enforcement officials have identified as hotbeds of Baton Rouge's opioid crisis.
District Judge Louise Hines Myers imposed the mandatory life without the possibility of parole sentence for Mallory’s murder conviction. She also sentenced him to the maximum 20 years on the weapons offense.
She cited Mallory’s previous criminal history as well as surveillance footage that showed him and the victim fighting in a first-floor breezeway moments before Mallory shot a fleeing Lewis, according to prosecutors.
“This, to me, was a clear case of second-degree murder,” the judge said. “The even clearer thing was that you liked to carry a gun. I don’t take that lightly, especially because you had three prior felony convictions and a domestic battery conviction, which all prohibited you from possessing a firearm.”
The shooting happened late in the morning of Dec. 14, 2022. According to authorities, it followed a physical altercation between the men that stemmed from a dispute over stolen narcotics. Baton Rouge police said Lewis gathered some of his belongings and walked away from the brewing quarrel after he and Mallory tussled in the breezeway. At one point during that initial encounter, Mallory dropped a gun and someone else picked it up, police said.
Moments later, when Lewis returned, he turned to run when he saw that Mallory had retrieved the weapon.
But it was too late. Prosecutors presented surveillance footage during the trial that showed Mallory open fire on Lewis, who died on the motel pavement.
Mallory argued it was a justifiable homicide and sought to prove to jurors that he shot Lewis in self-defense because he thought he was still in danger. Judge Hines noted that Mallory’s testimony at trial helped convince her that it was a premeditated killing.
The FairBridge Inn Express was one of eight budget lodges within a four-mile strip along the Interstate 12 corridor that had 135 calls for overdoses over an 18-month span between 2021 and mid-2022, an Advocate investigation revealed. The drug activity that made low-cost motels and hotels in the area a hotspot for the city’s fentanyl epidemic also ran parallel to a slate of violent crimes that plagued the properties.
The FairBridge Inn Express was the scene of multiple fatal shootings and drug overdoses in the weeks surrounding the December 2022 homicide.
Mallory did not speak at Wednesday's hearing. Moments before the judge sentenced him, Lewis’ mother sobbed as she talked about grappling with the pain and loss he caused.
“I just hope that that young man picks up a Bible once in a lifetime and asks God to forgive him, because I’m trying. I’m still trying to forgive him for what he did to us,” Sheila Lewis said.
She expressed compassion for Mallory’s mother and said she sympathizes with the plight of having a child imprisoned for life.
“This has been a very long journey for me. That was my first-born, I don’t think you’ll ever understand,” Sheila Lewis said as she broke down. “I just want his mom to know that I don’t hate her. She did not create that monster. She brought him here with a good heart. And all I need to know is was it worth him taking my baby’s life? Just tell me was it worth taking my child’s life.”