Feds seek long sentence for drug dealer who nearly beat Staten Island man to death over $250

A short-fused drug dealer who thought a customer stiffed him out of $250 couldn’t even wait a few hours to find out why he didn’t get his cash — and he beat the Staten Island man so badly that it nearly killed him.

Ibn Cheatham, 28, admitted in Brooklyn Federal Court hat he delivered the near-fatal pummeling in front of the victim’s horrified girlfriend, while their two young children were at home. Prosecutors want a judge to send him to prison for 17.5 to 20 years.

Cheatham, who has a history of violence dating back years, started selling drugs to the victim on a Newark, N.J. street in January 2021, and gave the man his number so he could make house calls, according to court documents.

Documents filed by federal prosecutors, which lay out the ”abhorrent” details of the crime, refer to the victim only as John Doe.

Cheatham took two trips to the victim’s Staten Island home, on Jan. 31 and Feb. 2, 2021 — that second visit sparked his rage.

John Doe tried to use Cash App to pay Cheatham $250 for his heroin and Xanax, and the dealer’s Lyft ride to New Jersey, just after 1:45 a.m.

The app automatically blocked the transaction, but Cheatham didn’t find out until he returned to the Garden State.

Over the course of 41 minutes, Cheatham called the victim more than a dozen times. But John Doe was asleep, he dozed off after he took the Xanax pills he bought.

Enraged, Cheatham ordered another Lyft back to Staten Island, and at 5 a.m., he pounded on the victim’s front door, bellowing, “Police! Open the door!”

The victim’s girlfriend awoke to the noise, and she roused her beau. Before they could react, though, Cheatham busted through the vestibule and front door, gun in hand, and started punching and pistol-whipping John Doe.

He then racked his gun, told the victim to wash his face off and take a ride to a nearby ATM, and warned the woman he’d kill her and her family if she called 911. The couple’s two small children — a two-year old, and an older disabled, non-verbal child were home at the time.

Cheatham and the victim went to a nearby convenience store ATM, where the victim took out $400, and gave Cheatham $380.

Days later, when John Doe checked into a detox center to get clean, t a receptionist noticed “white goo” leaking from his nose, according to court filings. He passed out waiting for an ambulance.

It turned out the beating was worse than he realized. He suffered a broken nose and a subdural hematoma, or “brain bleed,” and doctors needed to cut into his skull and perform emergency surgery to remove the hematoma. He was placed in a medically-induced coma, and needed 70 staples to close the incision.

Cheatham was arrested in Montclair, N.J., about three weeks later, after cops responding to a report of a burglary found him leaving the scene in a taxi with a small gun in his shoe, federal prosecutors said.

He was indicted on federal kidnapping, extortion, and gun charges in August 2021, and pleaded guilty to the extortion and gun charges in April.

“The defendant has spent well over a decade committing crimes or in prison. And those prison sentences have not deterred or rehabilitated him,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Garen Marshall wrote in a Jan. 8 letter to Judge Eric Komitee.

Cheatham’s lawyer is asking for 11 to 13.5 years in prison, describing her client as the child of an imprisoned father and an alcoholic mother, who was abused by his relatives and struggled with depression and developmental delays growing up. He took to drugs at age 12, and became addicted to opioids, the attorney, Allegra Glashausser said.

“Despite these grave challenges, since becoming a young father at 18 years old, he has been an active, loving, and supportive parent,” Glashausser said, adding that he is dedicated to helping raise two children, ages, 10 and 5 years old. “He is also a devoted caretaker to his ailing mother.”

Glashausser also said that the victim got into a car crash two days before the beating, which may have contributed to his injuries.

Cheatham is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 17.