Cabin Tap House Shooter Sentenced to 62 Years for New Year’s Day Killings

Diecidue, now 24 years old, was sentenced to more than six decades behind bars on Friday, June 30, for two counts of second-degree murder and one count of second-degree assault by Judge Nikea Bland in Denver District Court. Diecidue had already pleaded guilty to the charges the week before his sentencing.

Diecidue was at the Cabin to celebrate New Year’s Eve; so were 29-year-old Zewdie and 24-year-old Phillips, although none of them knew each other. At one point, Phillips bumped into a group of men near a set of stairs by the dance floor. Diecidue was with the group, and when Phillips went to the basement of the club, the group followed and continued harassing him, according to a Denver Police Department arrest affidavit.

In the basement, a friend of Phillips tried to stop the argument when someone from Diecidue’s group came up and hit Phillips in the side of the head from behind. A witness says that Diecidue and some others in the group stood near the stairs, as though they were ready to block Phillips from leaving.

Phillips and his friend tried to get away from the group by going back upstairs, but Diecidue followed and started kicking him. 

Phillips was bleeding, and his friend went to tell security what Diecidue and his group had done. While the bouncers tried to figure out what was going on, Diecidue pulled out a handgun and shot at least five times in Phillips’s direction.

Zewdie was standing right next to Phillips when Diecidue started firing, according to police records. Two other bystanders were shot, one a man who was leaving the club when he was shot in the ankle and stumbled out.

When the police arrived at the location, they saw two injured men outside the bar. Inside, they found Phillips and Zewdie unresponsive on the ground. The two were pronounced dead after an ambulance arrived a few minutes later.

The Cabin Tap House was closed for good the day of the shootings, and the incident became the catalyst for Denver to take action against the owner, Valentes Corleons (real name Hussam Kayali) for violating business codes and creating a public nuisance — both at the Cabin and at his club next door, Beta Event Center. Before Corleons bought the building in 2021, the 1919 Blake Street address was the longtime location of Falling Rock Tap House.

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Levi Diecidue was convicted of second-degree murder and assault after pleading guilty the week before his sentencing.

Courtesy of Denver District Attorney’s Office

Diecidue was caught by police two weeks after the shooting at a home in northwestern Aurora. Investigators had tracked him down by looking through the club’s ID scanner to find driver’s license informatoin; after several days, authorities located Diecidue and staked out the house where he was staying before eventually arresting him.

At his sentencing, Diecidue apologized for killing Zewdie and Phillips — both parents to young children — as well as for leaving their kids without a mother and father. He said he had spent a lot of time thinking about what he had done and that his heart “was filled with rage and anger at the time.”

According to Judge Bland, everyone who spoke at the sentencing “was ready to offer [Diecidue] nothing but forgiveness,” but that he had to “work to earn the forgiveness that they’ve offered.”

He was sentenced to a total of 62 years in prison.

Corleons ended up selling the Cabin two weeks after the shooting — the same day that Diecidue was caught by police — and sold Beta about a week after that for $5.6 million to the same buyer, Walid Maaliki, according to Denver property records. No sale price is listed for the Cabin.

Maaliki sold the Cabin property earlier this year for $2.9 million to Mile High on Blake St LLC, according to Denver records. While it remains closed, plans are in the works to turn it into Sky Lounge, a 21-and-over full bar and grill.