CLEVELAND — A Parma 17-year-old faces the possibility of life in prison after being sentenced for murdering a 14-year-old in Cleveland last year.
Steven Sopko, 17, was sentenced to life in prison with the first eligibility of parole after 31 years by Judge Nancy Fuerst, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O'Malley announced Friday.
Sopko, who was 16 at the time of the murder, shot 14-year-old Braylon Hardges 13 times in the back at his girlfriend's house near East 90th Street and Edmunds Avenue in Cleveland on Nov. 5, 2023. Hardges was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
On Oct. 25, a jury found Sopko guilty of one count of aggravated murder, two counts of murder and two counts of felonious assault.
According to the prosecutor's office, Hardges and Sopko left Sopko's girlfriend's house together on the evening of the shooting and walked down the street. Sopko bent down and let Hardges walk ahead of him before the then-16-year-old Sopko stood up and fired 12 shots into Hardges' back. The prosecutor's office said Sopko waited for Hardges to fall to the ground before he leaned over him and fired a 13th shot into the 14-year-old's back.
After the fatal shooting, prosecutors say Sopko fled back to his girlfriend's house.
The Cleveland Division of Police Homicide Unit linked Sopko to the murder through phone and social media records and ballistic evidence. Sopko was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service's Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force on Jan. 4 of this year. His case was bound over from Cuyahoga Juvenile Court to the county's common pleas court in March.
In a post shared to the Cleveland, Ohio Remembrance Page, his family described him as someone who "had big dreams for himself and wanted nothing more than to create a better life for himself and his family."
"Braylon gave great hugs and showed large amounts of compassion to those he cared about," the post continued.
