By Brian C. Louwers
C & G Staff Writer

WARREN — The last of four Warren teens sentenced for a role in the July 2009 beating death of a 46-year-old man will spend up to 30 years in prison, a judge in Macomb County Circuit Court ordered on March 10.

Kevin Antone, 18, found guilty of second-degree murder and armed robbery following a jury trial before Judge Edward Servitto in late January, was ordered to spend to 13 1/2 to 30 years in prison on both charges, which the sentences running concurrently.

Prosecutors said Antone hit Michael Daniel McCarthy in the head with a piece of concrete, kicked him, and took drugs from his pocket during an altercation that stemmed from McCarthy’s alleged theft of a small amount of marijuana from another teen, 16-year-old Brandon Ebel.

Assistant Macomb County Prosecuting Attorney Steven Kaplan said Ebel and Antone came into contact with McCarthy earlier in the evening on July 26, 2009, the date McCarthy was killed, when the teens arrived at the home of Ebel’s father to deliver marijuana. McCarthy reportedly took a $5 bag of marijuana from Ebel, who returned to his mother’s home with Antone and recruited two other teens — 18-year-old Jacob Androsuk of Warren and 17-year-old Thomas Henry Post of Roseville — to help them retrieve the drugs.

Kaplan told the jury the boys confronted McCarthy as a “posse” near the home of Ebel’s father on Stephens and that a confrontation evolved into a beating.

“This case revolves around gang mentality in its most outlandish form,” Kaplan said after the sentencing. “None of the defendants would have attacked Mr. McCarthy without the encouragement of the others.”

The teens received widely different penalties for their roles in McCarthy’s death.

Ebel, who reportedly carried the bottom end of a broken pool stick to the scene and, according to Kaplan, used it to strike McCarthy, was found guilty in December of second-degree murder and armed robbery and ordered to spend 13 1/2 to 22 1/2 years in prison.

Charges were later reduced for both Post and Androsuk, who agreed to testify in the cases against Ebel and Antone, respectively.

Post was put on probation for 18 months after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit larceny, a one-year misdemeanor that will remain on his record.

Androsuk pleaded guilty to unarmed robbery and assault with intent to do great bodily harm and was ordered to serve three years in a youth prison, after which his record could be expunged if he successfully completes the terms of his sentence.

Defense attorney Kenneth Vernier told the jury that Antone reacted out of self-defense during the altercation and that his client believed McCarthy was armed.

After Antone’s sentencing, Vernier said he was disappointed in the verdict and opined that the testimony in the case substantiated his client’s claims of self-defense.

“I thought at a minimum there was sufficient facts that the individual, Mr. McCarthy, had provoked the whole incident. Based on that I thought at a minimum the facts supported involuntary manslaughter,” Vernier said. “This individual, Mr. McCarthy, had just got out of prison for armed robbery. He committed a strong-armed robbery on my client.”

Vernier said the fact that the weapon McCarty reportedly implied he had was never found presented a problem for the self-defense case, but he added that having the weapon as evidence wasn’t required by statute.

“I had a lot of contact with Kevin Antone, my client. I had a lot of contact with his family,” Vernier added. “I don’t believe this was in his character. This is a good family. He had a lot of support from friends and family. Unfortunately this was an outcome they could never have predicted from the things that transpired on that evening.”