Elijah Russell signed a plea deal in July to armed robbery after admitting he helped lure a child, then held a knife to his throat, leading him into a yard where he was severely beaten.

Court records show the victim admitted to stealing part of a “contonant” from Russell’s group the day before. Two other juveniles who beat the victim were also charged.

Russell asked Judge Samuel Cappas for leniency on Tuesday, saying he will get a GED and wants to earn a college basketball scholarship.

How are you going to do that when you haven’t been to high school, asked the judge.

“Hard work,” replied Russell, now 18, of Des Moines, Iowa, Gary’s ex.

Calling him a “dangerous” person, Cappas gave him the maximum six-year sentence under the Indiana Department of Corrections plea deal — even more time than prosecutors had asked for. His final year was to be served in Lake County Community Corrections.

“This is what you see all the time on the news,” he told Russell.

Assistant District Attorney Chris Bruno noted that the cases were dropped from juvenile court for aggravated robbery. For Russell, he asked for three years in prison, 1.5 years in community corrections and 18 months of probation.

Defense lawyer Nick Barnes said there was more to Russell’s story.

After his father died when he was 11 and his mother became ill, he stayed with his grandparents in Gary — “essentially unsupervised,” Barnes said. He asked her to avoid prison, saying she had already spent almost a year behind bars.

What happened was “definitely a disappointment” but “not a surprise”.

Russell, in a white juvenile prison jumpsuit, said he wanted to move his life in a “different direction.”

When Cappas asked how probation would “change your life,” Russell said he didn’t have an answer.

Hammond police responded early Jan. 13 to the 3200 block of 163rd Street.

The victim said the trio invited him to smoke marijuana. He slipped into the back seat of a car parked in a garage.

Russell, the older teenager, got out of the car and forced the victim into the back yard while holding a blade to his throat. The three children beat him and took his belongings, including an iPhone, Apple cards and his backpack.

Another teenager, 16, hit the victim over the head with part of a bed frame, according to the affidavit. While on the ground, Russell and the other 16-year-old beat, kicked and stomped on him.

The child was “too injured” to cycle home. A witness called 911 and he was taken to the hospital. He had a broken nose, a swollen eye and cuts.

Police found the trio and the victim’s cell phone.

A teenager was also jailed for six years in September after a plea deal for armed robbery.

The case of the second teenager, also a minor, is pending. He was also accused, named as an accomplice, of helping to rob a pizza delivery guy a year earlier.

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