Man sentenced to prison for 2022 fatal stabbing outside Las Vegas IHOP

A 53-year-old man was sentenced Tuesday to between 10 and 25 years in prison for fatally stabbing a man in 2022 outside an IHOP north of the Strip.

Anthony Reed pleaded guilty in May to second-degree murder in the death of 24-year-old Darius Stokes. District Judge Carli Kierny sentenced Reed to prison, following an agreement between prosecutors and his defense attorney.

Reed was captured on video surveillance appearing to stab a man on Aug. 13, 2022, in the parking lot of the IHOP at 1809 Las Vegas Blvd. South.

The footage showed Reed swing at the back of Stokes’ head while holding a sharp, pick-like object, according to an arrest report. Police later found a small wound in the victim’s scalp the size of the tip of a pen.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Giancarlo Pesci said Tuesday that the murder weapon was never recovered.

“I would kind of describe it as some sort of sharp object, some sort of shank-type thing, but it was really, really small,” Pesci told the judge.

Reed was on parole in a murder case in California at the time of the killing, according to the report.

“California and Las Vegas dropped the ball,” Stokes’ mother, Shannon Robinson, said after the hearing, adding that she believed the sentence was too light.

According to Reed’s arrest report, he told police that he punched Stokes to defend his sister from verbal abuse outside the restaurant.

“I do want the court to know that there’s been remorse,” said Reed’s public defender, Robert O’Brien. “He’s just also aware that he can’t take back his actions, and that words ring rather hollow.”

Multiple family members told the judge about Stokes during the hearing. Asia Briggs, one of Stokes’ sisters, said her brother moved to Las Vegas shortly before he was killed to be with her and pursue a job as a bartender to provide for his two young children.

“I was robbed of the opportunity to see my brother fulfill the life goals that we had set together,” Briggs said.

Briggs said that her brother’s killing has left her with “indescribable pain and a lot of anger.”

Robinson told the judge that Reed has permanently harmed her family, and that her grandchildren will have to grow up without a father.

“The man destroyed my family,” Robinson said. “And my daughters — all my daughters — they’ll never be the same because they don’t trust people.”

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240.