A former St. Paul city worker was sentenced to more than a decade in prison Friday for shooting a teenager in the head last year outside a recreation center where he worked.
Exavir Binford, 27, who pleaded guilty to first-degree assault in December, was sentenced by Ramsey County District Judge Joy Bartscher to 10 years and five months and ordered to pay the teen’s family $34,000 in restitution.
Andrew Marshall, a lawyer representing the victim’s mother, Margarita Davison, said Binford’s actions permanently scarred the teen and his family.
The boy, who was 16 at the time, “has not been able to return to school. He is taking online classes, but he can only handle it part time,” Marshall told the court, relaying a victim impact statement from the teen’s family. “He really can’t go anywhere without his mother because she has to be able to administer emergency medication if he has a seizure.
“As a parent, Ms. Davison thought that [her son] going to the Jimmy Lee rec center after school was a good thing. She thought it was a safe environment. … The idea that the person running the rec center would try to harm her son was unimaginable.”
Binford could spend the last third of his sentence on supervised release if he remains on good behavior.
Police arrested Binford in January 2023 after a confrontation involving several teens escalated into a fight in the parking lot of the Jimmy Lee Rec Center on Lexington Pkwy. N. According to charging documents, Binford told investigators that he shot at the teens after they jumped him. He said he didn’t realize his bullet had struck the teenager until a moment later.
After Binford pleaded guilty to the assault charge, prosecutors dismissed a second-degree attempted murder charge and agreed to a sentence above state guidelines.