A 16-year-old Lusby resident was sentenced to life in prison, with all but 18 years suspended, for shooting a 24-year-old woman during an attempted robbery last year, Calvert County prosecutors announced this week.
Calvert County Circuit Court Judge Mark S. Chandlee handed down the sentence Aug. 3 against Jasier Isai Aparicio for attempted first-degree murder. The case stemmed from a June 5, 2025, shooting in the White Sands area of Lusby. Calvert County Sheriff’s Office investigators determined Aparicio conspired with two other people to rob 24-year-old Alexis Commodore; during the encounter, Aparicio shot Commodore in the back. She survived her injuries.
Deputies responding to the initial 911 call found Commodore in her vehicle on Spruce Drive after she had driven there seeking help; she was flown to a regional trauma center for treatment. Aparicio and his co-defendants were arrested within days of the shooting. Deputy State’s Attorney Christopher J. Monte and Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Benjamin G. Lerner prosecuted the case.
Aparicio was 15 at the time of the shooting. Under Maryland law, 16- and 17-year-olds charged with attempted first-degree murder are automatically prosecuted in adult criminal court rather than juvenile court, one of a defined list of serious violent and firearm offenses that trigger automatic adult jurisdiction regardless of a defendant’s age at the time of arrest. That framework remained largely intact even after Maryland lawmakers passed the Youth Charging Reform Act earlier this year, which removed several lower-level offenses — including certain firearm-transfer and drug-related gun crimes — from the list of charges that send 16- and 17-year-olds directly to adult court, while preserving automatic adult prosecution for the most serious offenses, including murder, attempted murder and rape. That law took effect this year amid a broader statewide debate over how Maryland should handle escalating concern about youth gun violence alongside data showing stark racial disparities among juveniles charged as adults.
Even when a case begins in adult court, Maryland law allows a defendant charged as a juvenile to request that a judge waive the case back down to juvenile jurisdiction for rehabilitative handling instead of an adult sentence, though that option is unavailable to 16- and 17-year-olds specifically charged with murder. It was not publicly disclosed whether Aparicio sought a transfer to juvenile jurisdiction in this case before his sentencing as an adult.
The sentence Aparicio received — life with all but 18 years suspended — is broadly consistent with sentencing patterns local prosecutors have secured in other recent Calvert County shooting cases. In June, a Lusby man convicted of attempted second-degree murder in an unrelated September 2025 drive-by shooting on Golden West Way received a 66-year sentence with all but 22 years suspended, also from a Calvert County Circuit Court judge.
Suspended portions of sentences like Aparicio’s typically allow for a period of supervised probation once the active incarceration term concludes, a common structure in Maryland felony sentencing that lets courts impose a lengthy total sentence while requiring only a defined portion to be served in custody.
Maryland generally shields the names of juveniles charged as adults from release in early stages of a case, though names typically become part of the public record once formal charges or indictments are filed in circuit court, as occurred here.
The case remains one of several violent shooting incidents Calvert County prosecutors and sheriff’s investigators have worked through the courts over the past year, part of what officials have described as a sustained effort to hold perpetrators of gun violence accountable regardless of age. The White Sands shooting drew significant local attention at the time, with the Calvert County Sheriff’s Office publicly crediting patrol deputies and specialized units for identifying and arresting the suspects within days of the attack, a response local officials pointed to as an example of swift investigative work on a case involving a young shooting victim who survived injuries that could easily have proven fatal.
