Defendant in Lenawee County gang-related murder case accepts plea to manslaughter

ADRIAN — An Adrian man whose trial in 2023 on murder conspiracy charges ended with a hung jury pleaded guilty this past Tuesday to manslaughter and firearms charges.

Andrew Erin Cecil, 33, was one of two men charged with conspiring to kill Christopher Dickerson, 27, of Weston, who was shot to death in January 2019 in a wooded area near Morenci. Cecil's co-defendant, Count Tereso the Almighty Trevino, 41, of Adrian, was found guilty in April 2023 in Lenawee County Circuit Court while the jury could not reach a verdict on Cecil and a mistrial was declared.

Cecil pleaded guilty to manslaughter and felony firearm July 16, which is when his new trial was scheduled to begin in Lenawee County Circuit Court. Judge Michael R. Olsaver accepted his guilty pleas and scheduled sentencing for Aug. 22.

Trevino, who changed his name from Terry Lynn Trevino several years ago, was convicted of open murder, conspiracy to commit open murder, solicitation of open murder and gang membership felonies, which were the same charges that Cecil was charged with. He is serving 45 to 85 years in prison on the open murder and conspiracy charges, 37 1/2 to 65 years on the solicitation charge, and 15 years to 26 years and 8 months on the gang membership felonies charge. He is imprisoned at St. Louis Correctional Facility in mid-Michigan, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC).

In entering his guilty pleas, Cecil admitted that he was upset that Dickerson was going to testify against him in a case from 2018 where he and Dickerson had fought in an apartment in Adrian and Cecil stabbed Dickerson with a knife. Dickerson was able to get out of the apartment and call 911. He was found on a nearby sidewalk with a knife wound to his upper back and was flown by helicopter to a hospital for treatment.

While Cecil was in the Lenawee County Jail awaiting trial in that case between May 2018 and January 2019, he met with Austin Keith Richardson, a fellow inmate who, according to testimony during the murder case , was a member of the Latin Counts gang along with Cecil and Trevino. Dickerson was known to associate with the Counts.

Cecil's attorney, George Lyons of Jackson, asked him about his conversations with Richardson.

"You did say to Mr. Richardson, 'Get that gun and kill that m-----------, man. I don't want him testifying against me,'" Lyons said.

"Yes," Cecil replied.

"And as a result Mr. Dickerson was shot and killed by Mr. Richardson and or David Taylor, is that correct?" Lyons asked.

"Yes," Cecil answered.

Dickerson was killed before the stabbing case went to trial in circuit court. A transcript of Dickerson’s testimony at the preliminary examination in district court was allowed to be used at the trial, and Cecil was found guilty of stabbing Dickerson . He is serving up to 10 years in prison. He is incarcerated at Gus Harrison Correctional Facility in Madison Township, according to the MDOC.

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Other Counts members testified during the case's proceedings that the punishment for testifying against a fellow Count is death.

Richardson and Taylor have accused each other of shooting Dickerson on Jan. 21, 2019, and are jailed in relation to the murder and other crimes. They claimed to have led Dickerson out to the woods under the guise that they were going to steal guns, drugs and money from a hunting blind. Richardson has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is awaiting sentencing. Taylor has a pretrial hearing scheduled for Aug. 7.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Cecil will be sentenced to 10 to 22 1/2 years in prison on the manslaughter charge and an additional 2 years on the felony firearms charge. Under state law, the felony firearms sentence would be served first, followed by the manslaughter charge.

Ordinarily, manslaughter has a maximum sentence of 15 years, but Cecil is being sentenced as a habitual offender, which allows the maximum to be 1 1/2 times the normal sentence.

Cecil has prior felony convictions for unlawful driving away an automobile and third-degree fleeing police as well as the conviction for assault with intent to do great bodily harm in the stabbing case. The auto-theft conviction was used as the basis for the habitual offender enhancement to the manslaughter sentence.

Olsaver will be able to decide whether the new sentences will be served concurrent to the sentence in the stabbing case or if they will be served after Cecil is discharged from the assault sentence, Lyons told the court.

— Contact reporter David Panian at dpanian@lenconnect.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @lenaweepanian .

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Defendant in Lenawee County gang-related murder case accepts plea to manslaughter