DENVER — One of three teenagers accused of killing a 20-year-old woman as she threw large rocks at passing cars in Colorado pleaded guilty Friday to a reduced charge under a plea deal, prosecutors said.
The agreement reached with 19-year-old Zachary Kwak requires him to cooperate in the prosecution of the two other teens who remain charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of Alexa Bartell. That could include being called to testify against Nicholas “Mitch” Karol-Chik or Joseph Koenig, said a spokesperson for District Attorney Alexis King Brionna Boatright.
Karol-Chik and Koenig have both pleaded not guilty.
Kwak pleaded guilty to first-degree assault in Bartell’s death on April 19, 2023, acknowledging that he acted in a manner that created a high risk of death, King’s office said. He also pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and attempted second-degree assault in the cases of rocks that prosecutors said were thrown from the trio’s truck earlier that evening. Three other people were injured.
In exchange for Kwak’s guilty pleas to these charges, prosecutors dropped other, more serious charges against him, including first-degree murder. Kwak faces between 20 and 32 years in prison, prosecutors said. He will not be sentenced until September 3, after Karol-Chik and Koenig will be tried separately.
Karol-Chik’s attorney, Holly Gummerson, declined to comment on the plea deal or the charges against her client. Attorneys representing Koenig did not immediately return a phone call or email requesting comment.
Prosecutors allege that all three were driving around in Karol-Chik’s pickup truck the night Bartell was killed after he loaded it with bricks they took from a Walmart.
The men were arrested several days after Bartell was hit while driving northwest of Denver and on the phone with a friend. After the conversation fell silent, the girlfriend tracked Bartell’s location with a phone app and found the suburban Denver woman dead in her car, which had crashed in a field.
Investigators have said Bartell was killed by the rock and not the crash.