Lemrick Nelson, Jr. (born July 31, 1975) is an African-American man who stabbed Hasidic student Yankel Rosenbaum to death during the racial unrest of the 1991 Crown Heights riot. Though his lawyer did not deny at his trial that Nelson stabbed Rosenbaum, he argued that the killing had nothing to do with Rosenbaum's being Jewish. Nelson was arrested several times on unrelated charges over the following years. In a third trial for Rosenbaum's murder, Nelson was convicted of violating Rosenbaum's civil rights in the murder, and served a 10-year sentence. Nelson admitted for the first time at his 2003 trial that he had stabbed Rosenbaum. Early life Nelson is the son of immigrants to the United States from Trinidad, Lemrick Nelson Sr. (formerly a baker) and his former wife, Valerie Evans. According to information presented by his lawyers in 1995, Nelson had a troubled childhood. His mother, who reportedly suffered from mental illness, repeatedly tried to abort him before he was born. As an infant, he lived with his mother at a shelter for battered women. Nelson's earliest memories involved a physical altercation between his father and mother. Eventually, his mother abandoned him when he was 18 months old. Nelson was identified as a "youngster at risk" in elementary school. He had poor motivation, disrupted classes, and did poorly academically. Nelson was interviewed and tested in November 1994 by psychologists Dr. Naftali Berrill, and Dr. Ife Landsmark. Both rated his I.Q. as low average to average, while Landsmark noted a high-average score in a language-free test. The doctors characterized his symptoms as those of a conduct disorder without any significant psychopathology. Killing of Yankel Rosenbaum Events of August 19–20, 1991 After seven-year-old African-American Gavin Cato was accidentally struck and killed by an automobile in the motorcade of a prominent Hasidic rabbi on August 19, 1991, some Black residents of Crown Heights rioted. Shortly after the riot began, a group of 12–20 young Black men shouting "Kill the Jew", surrounded Yankel Rosenbaum, a 29-year-old Australian University of Melbourne graduate student who was in the United States conducting doctoral research. Nelson stabbed Rosenbaum in the back and was apprehended by police a short time later. Before being taken to the hospital, Rosenbaum identified Nelson as the person who had stabbed him. Rosenbaum died from internal bleeding at Kings County Hospital. His medical treatment at the hospital was the subject of later litigation: