Theodore Edgecomb Sentenced to 25 Years for Reckless Homicide of Milwaukee Attorney

With a furrow in her eyebrows and a quiver in her voice, she quickly pans the courtroom back and forth.

“If I can’t find a seat, I have to leave?”

She is there for the victim’s family, but a woman from the defendant’s party offers her a seat: on her lap. She takes it.

Over 50 people were present in the courtroom as Theodore Edgecomb was sentenced to 25 years in prison and 12 years of extended supervision on Friday, April 8, 2022, after he was found guilty of first-degree reckless homicide on Jan. 26, 2022. 

“You shot him right here, almost right between the eyes,” said Judge Borowski to Edgecomb in court on April 8. “That is not an accident, as you testified. It’s not.”

On Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2020, Edgecomb was on a bike traveling near Brady Street when Jason Cleereman, a Milwaukee immigration attorney, approached him in a vehicle with his wife. In Edgecomb’s testimony on Jan. 26, he said that initially, Jason Cleereman said “the n-word” and to “get out of the street.” The couple quickly pulled over and Jason Cleereman left the car to chase Edgecomb on foot. Only moments later, Edgecomb used an illegally-owned firearm to shoot Jason Cleereman once in the head. He was dead upon arrival.

Edgecomb argued he killed Cleereman in self-defense. Supporters of Edgecomb, a black man, draw parallels to Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal; a white 17-year-old who also used an illegally-owned firearm to shoot and kill two protestors and wound another at a Black Lives Matter rally in Kenosha, Wisconsin on August 25, 2020. The court found his similar self-defense claim viable. Just 28 days and 42 miles separate the two cases.

Evanjelina Cleereman, the driver of the vehicle on Sept. 22 and Jason Cleereman’s wife, was a witness to her husband’s murder. She said the images from that night will never leave her mind.

“I didn’t get a phone call to tell me that my husband was killed; I saw it myself,” said Cleereman in court at the sentencing trial. “As physically close as I was to Jason when he was shot, I never had the opportunity to say goodbye; to kiss him, or to tell him that I love him because he was already dead.”

The Cleereman family requested the maximum penalty be issued, but Judge David Borowski did not think it was necessary as Edgecomb is “nowhere near the worst of the worst.”

Julie Aprahamian, Edgecomb’s great grandmother, said she knew her great-grandson to be “a great father.” 

She spoke about how the trial is affecting his children, specifically, as she sees them on a daily basis.

According to Aprahamian, Edgecomb had picked up takeout for himself and his eight-year-old daughter right before he fatally shot Cleereman. He was on his way back to her. His daughter now blames herself for what occurred since she requested he pick up food from Thainamite on Brady Street. 

She also said his six-year-old son is in therapy because “he cries for his daddy every night.” 

Judge Borowski noted the similarities between the testimonies given about Edgecomb and Cleereman, respectfully. Both parties were described by the loved ones as great fathers, educated individuals and active community members.

However, Borowski said Edgecomb having to explain to his children why he is in prison is “nothing compared to having young adults or older children never see their father again; never be there for a wedding or graduation from college or purchase a first home.”

Edgecomb has the opportunity to appeal his case if it is filed within 20 days after his sentencing.