Federal Way man gets 7-year sentence for using firearm during deadly drug deal
Published 2:05 pm Friday, September 26, 2014
A Federal Way man was sentenced to seven years in prison today for using a firearm during a drug deal in 2013, when a dealer fatally shot his half-brother.
U.S. District Court, Seattle judge Robert S. Lasnik also ordered 20-year-old Lenny Brikn, Jr. to serve his sentence at the Federal Correction Institute in El Reno, Oklahoma — a facility that Brikn’s attorney believes would help his client rebuild his life.
“On a personal level, Mr. Brikn refrains from blaming anyone else for what happened and sometimes even talks about sending a message for other African American youths in his community to not follow in his footsteps,” wrote Brikn’s attorney Jeffrey A. Lustick in a sentencing brief that was filed on Tuesday. “He talks about someday working in a career, which will lead youths away from gangs, violence and drugs and possibly as a counselor or as a Christian pastor.”
Lustick wrote that “not a day goes by” when Brikn does not think about his half-brother and wishes he could change the past.
Brikn and his half-brother Deshawn Boykin attempted to rob two drug dealers of two pounds of marijuana on Oct. 17, 2013 at a Federal Way apartment complex. Brikn and Boykin drew semi-automatic pistols and held the men at gunpoint, according to the indictment.
The brothers ultimately ran away, and one of the drug dealers, Renton resident David Ross, fatally shot Boykin. Ross was charged with conspiracy to distribute marijuana, unlawful possession of a firearm and discharging a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime — the latter charge carrying a mandatory minimum 10-year sentence. Ross is scheduled for trial in January of 2015.
Brikn pled guilty to using a firearm during the crime in April.
During the sentencing on Friday, Lasnik said, “Firearms in the hands of people who cannot control themselves continue to create tragedy in our community,” according to a media release from U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan’s office.
Durkan also noted the case was a “pure tragedy.”
“One young man is going to prison and his brother is dead — all over marijuana valued at less than $5,000,” she wrote in the media release. “This is a further reminder that guns and drugs are a deadly combination.”
At the Federal Correction Institute in Oklahoma, Brikn plans to enroll in a commercial welding program to learn a marketable trade, his attorney said. The facility also has an anti-gang policy, “as gangs are something that Brikn says he no longer wants to be around,” Lustick wrote in the sentencing brief.
