NYC man arraigned in Mass. teen's death

A 22-year-old man was arraigned yesterday in a New York City court on a charge that he murdered a 19-year-old student from Massachusetts who had invited him to his apartment.

Jeromie Cancel, who is homeless, was ordered held without bail after a hearing before Judge Felicia Mennin in Manhattan Criminal Court.

Another hearing was slated for tomorrow, said Alicia Maxey Greene, a spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.

Cancel allegedly killed Kevin Pravia, an honors student from the small Western Massachusetts town of Peru who was studying at Pace University in New York, on Saturday morning.

Police have said that Cancel told them that Pravia was looking for drugs and invited Cancel to his apartment.

According to a criminal complaint filed by a New York detective in the case, Cancel told police that after Pravia fell asleep he took some of Pravia's belongings.

"The defendant was about to walk out the door but turned back" and choked, punched, and suffocated Pravia until he stopped moving, the detective said in the first-degree murder complaint.

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