Youth Gets Probation in Offer to Swap Computer Games for Slaying of Rival
HOUSTON — A 17-year-old computer enthusiast received 10 years’ probation for paying an undercover investigator $5.30 and seven computer games to kill another student.
Shawn Kevin Quinn pleaded no contest last week. He was accused of trying to hire a hit man to kill the boyfriend of a girl he had a crush on.
State District Judge Denise Collins ordered Quinn to pay a $500 fine, attend counseling and cut the time he spends on his computer from an average of eight hours a day to 90 minutes.
A court-ordered psychological report portrayed Quinn as a precocious, gifted youth, unlikely to commit violence but socially retarded because he’s been isolated with his computer.
Quinn was arrested Jan. 18 after he offered investigator Gary Johnson of the district attorney’s office seven Atari computer cartridges and $5.30 to kill a fellow high-school student.
Harris County prosecutor Casey O’Brien acknowledged that probation was an unusually light sentence for solicitation of murder, but he called it “a very unusual case.”
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