Local Teen Slashing Suspect Insists on Adult Trial

A Lehigh County judge has granted a teen's request to be tried as an adult rather than a juvenile in a machete attack on a fellow student.

According to The Allentown Morning Call, Judge Kelly Banach tried to persuade 17-year-old Luis Manuel Roman to remain in the juvenile system during a hearing Wednesday.

“In juvenile court, rehabilitation and treatment are really important. In adult court, we’re more concerned about punishment,” The Morning Call reports Judge Banach told Roman.

Ultimately, the judge approved the request.

Roman is accused of slashing a classmate with a machete in November in Allentown in what police called a gang-related confrontation. The injured teen needed 30 stitches.

The judge warned Roman that two charges he faces carry maximum sentences of 20 years behind bars if he's convicted as an adult.

Roman insisted on adult charges.

“I’m not trying to go back to juvie,” said Roman, according to The Morning Call.

Based on a previous eight-month stint in a juvenile detention center, Roman says that juvenile offenders are “disrespectful” and that his brothers could visit him in prison, but they were not permitted to visit on his last stay in juvenile detention, reports The Allentown Morning Call.