The prosecution began as a first-degree murder case and ended with a guilty plea to second-degree murder with a firearm enhancement.
SEATTLE, Wash. — A plea agreement, not a trial verdict, ultimately decided the punishment in the killing of Seattle rideshare driver Amare Geda, with Ne’iana Allen-Bailey receiving a 20-year prison sentence after admitting guilt to a reduced murder charge.
The outcome matters because the case moved through several distinct legal stages before arriving at sentencing on March 27 in King County Superior Court. Allen-Bailey, now 20, was first accused of first-degree murder in the 2023 shooting death of Geda, a 52-year-old father of two who drove overnight for Uber and Lyft. By March 2026, the case had shifted to a guilty plea on an amended charge of second-degree murder with a firearm enhancement. That move set the sentencing range, removed the uncertainty of a trial and turned the hearing into a fight over how many years she should serve and how the court should weigh both the killing and her background.
The prosecution’s original theory centered on a fatal street encounter in Seattle’s SODO neighborhood shortly after 3:20 a.m. on Aug. 8, 2023. Court records cited by local outlets said Geda had just completed a trip and was sitting in his Prius near First Avenue South and South Walker Street when Allen-Bailey approached, opened the driver’s door and shot him. He then got out and collapsed in the roadway. Authorities said she drove off in the Prius and kept it for roughly two days. During that period, according to reporting on the charging papers and later sentencing materials, she used the vehicle to visit family in Skyway, go to a hair appointment in Kent and buy gas in Renton before police arrested her in South Lake Union. Those facts remained the spine of the case even as the charge changed.
The evidence described in public coverage helps explain why the case may have been positioned for a plea. Surveillance video reportedly narrowed the time frame of the encounter. One account said Allen-Bailey told detectives the interaction lasted about two minutes, while the video showed Geda outside the car for only several seconds before he fell. Local reports also said Allen-Bailey admitted involvement in an earlier armed confrontation with a Washington State Department of Transportation employee who had recorded graffiti activity, and that investigators tied the same gun to Geda’s killing. None of that required the state to prove its case at trial once the plea was entered, but it formed the factual basis surrounding the agreement and likely informed the leverage on both sides as the parties moved toward sentencing.
Once the plea was in place, the courtroom dispute changed from guilt to punishment. Prosecutors asked for a sentence above 23 years and described the killing as severe and the aftermath as callous. The defense asked the court to impose less time, pointing to Allen-Bailey’s youth at the time of the crime, trauma, mental health struggles and substance abuse. Judge Haydee Vargas landed between those positions. She imposed 180 months on the murder conviction and an additional mandatory 60 months for the firearm enhancement, resulting in a total sentence of 240 months. In practical terms, that meant the case ended without a trial but still produced a long prison term shaped by Washington sentencing law and the added time required for use of a firearm.
Sentencing also gave both sides one final chance to define what the case was about. For Geda’s family and supporters, it was about a husband and father whose ordinary overnight work shift ended in a killing that still feels senseless. A family statement read in court described the shock of losing the heart of the family in a single moment. Another relative said the damage spread beyond the home into a wider community. Allen-Bailey also spoke, saying she knew her remorse could not undo what happened and that the pain would remain. Those statements did not alter the judgment, but they showed how sentencing hearings often carry two stories at once: the legal story of counts, ranges and enhancements, and the human story of people trying to speak into a record that has nearly closed.
The procedural next steps are narrower now. Because Allen-Bailey has been sentenced after a guilty plea, the case is no longer headed toward trial. Future court activity would most likely involve post-judgment motions, sentence administration issues or an appeal challenging some part of the judgment or process. For the public, though, the major legal question has been answered. The state secured a murder conviction, the defense avoided a trial on the original top charge, and the court fixed the punishment at 20 years. What remains unresolved is not the sentence itself, but the fuller reason Geda was singled out that morning as he sat parked after a trip.
The sentence is now on the books, and the trial phase the case once seemed headed toward will not happen. Any new public development would come only if later filings reopen the court record.
Author note: Last updated April 20, 2026.