AUBURN, Maine — A 23-year-old Lewiston man pleaded guilty on Monday to manslaughter in connection with the July 2020 death of a Massachusetts man in an Auburn McDonald's parking lot.
Trai LaRue was initially charged with intentional and knowing murder in connection with the July 29, 2020, stabbing death of 22-year-old Roger Cornell of New Bedford, Massachusetts.
On Monday, Maine Assistant Attorney General Leanne Zainea told Androscoggin County Superior Court Justice Harold Stewart II the state would have submitted surveillance video from McDonald's that showed LaRue stabbing Cornell in the chest.
The Sun Journal reported in 2020, witnesses told police LaRue, and his brother were angry at Cornell for making "sexual advances" at their girlfriends the previous night and "jumped him" at the back of the McDonald's parking lot.
He died later at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston.
Zainea and defense attorney Justin Leary told Stewart that they would recommend LaRue serve between 17 and 20 years of a proposed 25-year sentence.
LaRue will be sentenced in March.