Philly Man Sentenced in Rydal Park Stabbing

One of the people involved in an incident in which a Rydal Park cook was stabbed, was sentenced Thursday. 

According to a Phillyburbs.com story, Montgomery County Judge Joseph Smyth sentenced Kaseem Lawson-Gregg, 21, of the 700 block of East Upsal Street, to three to 10 years in prison; he will be eligible for a program for young offenders, the story continued.

Lawson-Gregg pleaded guilty to aggravated assault charges late last year stemming from the incident.

According to the victim, Lawson-Gregg and a man later identified as Kareem Dacres, approached the vehicle in which the victim was a passenger at about 8:15 p.m. on Feb. 15, 2012. The victim said Lawson-Gregg tapped on the passenger-side window; Dacres stood behind Lawson-Gregg.

“He said, ‘What happened with my girlfriend?’ or something like that,” the victim said on the stand during the preliminary on Feb. 27, 2012. ‘Do you have a problem with my girl? Why did you call her a [expletive?]’”

The victim said he had gotten into an altercation with Lawson-Gregg’s girlfriend, Shayna McCrae, with whom he works, about a week prior to the stabbing. The altercation resulted in the victim being suspended from work for three days.  

On the stand, the victim said he didn’t call McCrae an expletive, but rather “a heifer.”

The victim exited the vehicle and started arguing with Lawson-Gregg and then Dacres man swung at the victim.

Following a scuffle, which included McCrae, the fight broke up, according to the victim, and both parties went their separate ways — until the victim said, “I bet you didn’t expect that from a small [expletive.]”

After that remark, the victim said McCrae confronted him; he then “mugged” McCrae by pushing her away by her face, at which point he said Lawson-Gregg stabbed him.

“I didn’t know what to think … it didn’t register in my mind at first,” the victim testified. “I yelled, ‘They’re cutting me, they got a knife, they got a knife, somebody get help.”

The victim lifted his shirt and revealed several pieces of gauze all over his body, as well as several fresh silver staples placed in a vertical line near his belly button.

Abington Detective Robert Wilsbach, a witness, reading from the affidavit, said that the victim was stabbed in the: 

• right scapula
• mid back, which cut an artery and required a ligation
• left lower abdomen
• left anterior chest wall, which caused a hemothorax
• right thoracotomy, which caused a pneumothorax
• right knee

The victim was in surgery for six hours and lost a liter of blood during surgery, according Wilsbach, who said he spoke with Abington Memorial Hospital health professionals regarding the victim’s injuries.

According to the Phillyburbs.com story, Dacres pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy and McCrae pleaded guilty to simple assault. Both received two years’ probation and community service.