Man Pleads Guilty in Connection with 2019 Death of Cambridge Resident Richelle Robinson

Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan and Cambridge Police Commissioner Branville Bard, Jr. have announced that Isaias Plaza, 20, of Boston, pleaded guilty last week to manslaughter in connection with the 2018 death of Richelle Robinson in Cambridge.  Judge Laurence Pierce sentenced Plaza to 2 ½ years in the House of Correction with 2 years to serve and the balance of his sentence suspended for 5 years.  Upon release, Plaza is ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation and submit to follow up treatment, to undergo a substance abuse evaluation and submit to follow up treatment, to not use drugs, to submit to random screens and to seek and maintain employment or continue education.

On July 22, 2018, at approximately 6:30 p.m., Cambridge Police responded to a report of a female who had been shoved to the ground on Cambridge Street. Upon arrival, first responders located the victim, later identified as 15-year-old Richelle Robinson, of Cambridge, unresponsive and bleeding. The victim was transported to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was pronounced dead on July 23, 2018.  The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner later ruled the cause of death to be blunt force trauma. The subsequent investigation revealed that the victim had been walking to a friend’s house at the time of the apparent assault. Eye witnesses informed authorities that they had seen a male, later determined to be Plaza, leaving the scene of the assault on a bicycle wearing jeans and black sneakers with white soles. Plaza later burned the clothes described by witnesses at the time of the assault in an effort to avoid being connected to the death of the victim. Investigators subsequently learned that Robinson and Plaza were known to each other and had previously shared a group of friends. Authorities discovered that they had a falling out with the victim and other members of their circle of friends in the weeks preceding this incident.

Plaza was directly indicted on July 29, 2019 by a Middlesex Superior Court Grand Jury.

The prosecutor assigned to this case is Assistant District Attorney Nicole Allain. The Victim Witness Advocate is Helena Clarke.