Elhadji Malick Ndiaye, 18, of Waltham, was stabbed to death in a parking lot at Regis College in Weston, Mass., in 2010. This past week, Ndiaye’s murderer, Robenson Daniel, 22, of Boston, pleaded guilty before the Middlesex Superior Court on charges of voluntary manslaughter and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
According to The Waltham News Tribune, Ndiaye and Daniel were both visiting friends on the Regis College campus the evening of Ndiaye’s murder. Daniel’s friends made derogatory remarks about Haitians, which several of Ndiaye’s friends were, thus leading to a fight between the two groups. When Ndiaye held a pipe over his head, Daniel stabbed him once.
At the time of the altercation, Ndiaye was one of two of Daniel’s victims, and was pronounced dead on the scene. Daniel’s other victim, Franky Andrevil, received six stab wounds, and was treated at Beth Israel Hospital and later released. On Aug. 30 Daniel pleaded his guilt and responsibility to all charges, and Ndiaye’s father, Mamadou Ndiaye, forgave Daniel for his actions nearly two years after Daniel’s arrest.
“We forgive you, person-to-person, we forgive you. As a family, we forgive you,” said Mamadou Ndiaye in an interview with The Waltham News Tribune. “This is the hardest thing that has ever happened to me. He was my only son. Nothing this hard will ever happen to me again, but we are human and we forgive you.”
According to a recent press release, following Daniel’s actions in 2010, he was sentenced by Middlesex Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Fahey to four-to-five years in state prison for the charge of voluntary manslaughter, three-to-five years in state prison to run concurrently for the charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and five years probation from and after prison sentence for the charge of assault with a dangerous weapon. Daniel’s probation was decided on the conditions that he not possess dangerous weapons, that he maintain his education or full-time employment and that he not maintain contact with the victims, the victims’ families or any witnesses.
“Daniel has been held in prison, and continues to serve his sentence since his arraignment in 2010,” Middlesex County District Attorney Spokesperson Stephanie Guyotte said.
Guyotte said that it is standard for court cases such as Daniel’s to take several years to make their way through the court system. It is therefore, also normal that Daniel is professing his guilt two years later.
According to Guyotte, Middlesex County is the largest county in Massachusetts, spanning 54 towns including large cities such as Cambridge and Framingham. “Therefore, the District Attorney’s office sees a widespread range of cases including a number of murders,” Guyotte said.
“Any time there is a complicated case, it’s a time-consuming process,” Guyotte said. “We have to go through a high burden amount of work to prove whether someone is guilty. There is a lot of work and due diligence that goes into both sides of a case to make sure that justice is achieved. We fully intended to prosecute Robenson Daniel for his crime, and we are pleased he admitted his guilt for the stabbing of Elhadji Ndiaye.”
Daniel’s lawyer Mark Shea claimed that Daniel acted out of obvious self-defense, and said in an interview with The Waltham News Tribune that “you can’t risk a 22-year-old man going to prison for the rest of his life.”
Daniel is currently serving his prison sentence and will continue attending classes at Wheelock College in Boston, which he attended before his arrest in 2010.
