by Office of the State’s Attorney for Howard County
The 49-year-old Washington, D.C. man convicted of the 2017 conspiracy and assault on his workplace supervisor has been sentenced to 50 years in prison. Eric Ricardo Exum, of the 600 block of Edgewood St., NE, was sentenced by Howard County Circuit Court Judge Timothy J. McCrone this morning.
A jury convicted Exum after a four-day trial last July when prosecutors described Exum as “the mastermind” of the conspiracy, with two other men, in the October 4, 2017 brutal assault on a Sykesville man at a Jessup gas station. The victim, Paul Albritton parked his vehicle and entered the station’s convenience store located in the 8800 block of Washington Blvd. His passenger, Exum, initially waited in the truck while Albritton went inside. When Albritton returned, a man later identified as Malcolm Xavier Littlejohn approached Albritton and struck him in the back of the head with a 3½-foot length of wooden two-by-four before fleeing. Albritton was transported to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center suffering from life threatening brain trauma.
At sentencing, Assistant State’s Attorney Scott Hammond read victim impact statements from Albritton and his family describing the lifelong consequences of the attack. Hammond relayed that Albritton “says he spends 90 percent of his day trying to get comfortable.” Exum briefly addressed Albritton, characterizing him as “my best friend” but offering no explanation for the attack nor an apology.
Citing Albritton’s injuries as “grievous and permanent,” and noting Exum’s prior criminal record as a “major offender,” Judge McCrone concurred with prosecutors’ request for an above-guidelines, maximum prison sentence of 25 years for the first-degree assault and a consecutive 25-year-year sentence for the conspiracy charge.
In June, Littlejohn, then-20 of the 11000 block of Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and conspiracy to commit first-degree assault and was sentenced to 25 years in prison on September 13. A third man was subsequently charged in the assault. Antwan Zahir Mayhew, 38 of the 3700 block of Donnell Dr., District Heights, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree assault on July 2 and received a fully-suspended, 10- year sentence.
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