A Memphis man has pleaded guilty to carjacking a local TV news photographer at a South Memphis gas station and will serve a sentence that leans more on rehab than a hard time.
On Wednesday, March 11, 2026, prosecutors said the man accepted an eight-year sentence for the June 2025 carjacking of WREG photographer Mike Suriani. The deal calls for one year in custody followed by seven years of intensive in-patient treatment at Harbor House, a facility identified in court. Suriani was filling up a station vehicle when the suspect confronted him with a gun and forced him out. He was not hurt.
According to WREG, prosecutors outlined the sentencing package in court and emphasized that treatment at Harbor House is a mandatory condition of the plea. Their report notes that the arrangement is designed to blend punishment with rehabilitation instead of opting for a longer stretch of straight prison time. In court, the Harbor House program was described as intensive.
How the carjacking unfolded
Coverage by Action News 5 at the time of the arrest said the carjacking took place at a Mobil station on Third Street in South Memphis while Suriani was topping off the station’s Toyota RAV4. That report said a man walked up with a gun, Suriani dropped his keys and ran, and the gunman took off in the RAV4.
Investigators tracked the vehicle to South Orleans Street the next day, according to that earlier coverage, and moved in on a suspect.
Arrest and vehicle recovery
More recent reporting states that officers ultimately found the station’s Toyota RAV4 in the 1700 block of South Orleans Street and took Lashunaye Railford into custody. As outlined by WREG, Railford’s guilty plea this week resolves the local charges tied to that arrest. The station also reported that Suriani escaped the ordeal physically unharmed.
Charges and sentence breakdown
Railford was initially booked in June 2025 on a carjacking charge and a firearms-related count, according to the original report from Action News 5. Prosecutors said the March plea agreement steered away from a longer prison term in favor of a one-year custody term with seven additional years locked into in-patient treatment.
Local prosecutors framed the outcome as both punitive and focused on rehabilitation, pointing to Harbor House as a key part of the sentence. The plea brings formal closure to a high-profile scare for a Memphis newsroom and serves as a local example of prosecutors pairing treatment programs with incarceration. WREG provided the latest details from the courtroom on the arrest and plea.
