AURORA | A man police say was involved in two separate killings during a three-week span in early 2014 has been sentenced to 47 years in prison in one of the cases.
Abdullah Jahlil Ratcliff, 21, pleaded guilty in January to second-degree murder for the January 2014 slaying of 22-year-old Arturo Arguelles-Chavez. He had been charged with first-degree felony murder in the Arguelles-Chavez case but reached a plea agreement with prosecutors just before the start of his trial.
Had he been convicted of first-degree murder, Ratcliff would have faced a mandatory life sentence. Instead, a judge sentenced him to 47 years in prison Tuesday, according to state records, and he could face another 24 years in prison in a separate case.
In the Arguelles-Chavez case, another man — Del Dawan Bankett, Jr., 25 — was sentenced to life in prison last year for his role in the slaying.
Police say a few weeks after that killing, Ratcliff was part of a bungled robbery that left 19-year-old Korin Williams dead.
Ratcliff was charged with several crimes in that case, the most serious being attempted aggravated robbery and is set to go on trial in May.
In the Arguelles-Chavez case, prosecutors say Bankett and Arguelles-Chavez met that day so Bankett could sell the victim an iPhone, which Arguelles-Chavez repaired and sold for a living.
When the pair met on the 14000 block of East First Drive, prosecutors say Bankett tried to increase the cost of the phone but Arguelles-Chavez refused to pay the difference. Bankett then walked back into an apartment and returned with a gun and pointed it at Arguelles-Chavez.
Michelle Yi, a spokeswoman for the DA’s office, said Ratcliff then demanded that Arguelles-Chavez give them his money.
Bankett fired a warning shot and Ratcliff pushed Arguelles-Chavez, Yi said. Bankett then shot Arguelles-Chavez and he and Ratcliff took the money and gun and ran together to a getaway car.
Arguelles-Chavez’s wife and two children were sitting in the car with the window open a few inches away from him when the shooting happened, prosecutors said.
A few weeks after that on Feb. 1, police say Ratcliff, along with Williams and Duantae Jerome Terrell, who was 17 at the time, planned to rob a man near the Weatherstone Apartments in north Aurora.
In an arrest affidavit filed against Ratcliff, police said Terrell, who is being tried as an adult, told investigators he accidentally shot Williams when the man they were trying to rob tried to run him over with an SUV. He and Ratcliff then fled the scene and were arrested after Ratcliff crashed his car several blocks away.
Terrell and Ratcliff are being tried separately and Terrell is also set for trial in May.