Lionel Tate pleads no contest to pizza holdup

Once believed to be the youngest person sentenced to life in prison in the United States, Lionel Tate got 10 years after pleading no contest Tuesday to armed robbery.

BY HANNAH SAMPSON
Lionel Tate, whose nine-year history in the Broward courts system has drawn worldwide attention, resolved his latest legal case on Tuesday when he pleaded no contest to armed robbery in the 2005 holdup of a pizza delivery man.

Tate, now 21, was on probation for the 1999 death of a 6-year-old playmate when the robbery occurred.

He is already serving 30 years in prison for violating his probation.

In a negotiated sentence, he will serve 10 years for the robbery while serving the time for violating his probation.

According to the Florida Department of Corrections, he is scheduled to be released from prison in 2031.

Dressed in black pants and a beige and gray shirt, Tate seemed relaxed in the courtroom, politely answering a judge's questions.

''I'm all right,'' he told reporters as Broward Sheriff's Office court deputies escorted him through a hallway later.

''Mr. Tate's been around a long time, his name's been around a long time,'' said Chief Assistant State Attorney Chuck Morton. ``He finally put an end to his case. It's really tragic that his life has taken this course and I don't feel good about that at all. But nevertheless, justice is served.''

JAILED AT 12

Tate was 12 in 1999 when he was arrested and charged as an adult for beating playmate Tiffany Eunick to death at his Pembroke Park home.

Two years later, he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, making history as the youngest person in the United States to receive such a sentence.

''We took a 12-year-old kid and locked him up in an adult penitentiary and basically subjected him to the worst of the worst -- even when he went to a juvenile facility, he was with the worst of the worst,'' said Tate's defense attorney, Jim Lewis. ``And this is how he grew up.''

His conviction was overturned by an appeals court, and a plea agreement led to his January 2004 release. In September of 2004, while under house arrest, he was arrested in a park for having a knife and being out of his house. A judge added five years to his 10-year probation but did not send him back to prison. Tate was arrested on May 23, 2005, for robbing the delivery man.

He previously pleaded guilty to the robbery and to violating his probation in 2006, but withdrew the guilty plea on the robbery.

Acting Circuit Court Judge Joel Lazarus sentenced Tate to 30 years in prison for violating probation -- a sentence that Lewis plans to fight.

Lewis said he will try to get that sentence knocked down to 10 years.

THE EVIDENCE

He said evidence that came out after the sentencing shows that Tate was not the gunman in the robbery.

Lewis said Tate ordered pizzas to be delivered to a Pembroke Park apartment and took pies from the car, but did not hold the gun on the delivery man.

''I admit he should be punished,'' Lewis said. ``But 30 years is just way too much.''

Morton said there was evidence that connected Tate to the crime, but also evidence that connected others. No one else has been charged in the robbery.

The arrest of another 12-year-old for murder earlier this year has drawn comparisons to Tate's case, with a key difference: Prosecutors charged the boy, accused of beating his 17-month-old cousin to death at her Lauderhill home, in juvenile court.

Lewis and Tate's mother, Kathleen Grossett-Tate, said that's how Tate's murder case should have been handled.

''You put them in a juvenile system, they're with children,'' said Grossett-Tate. ``They've not being trained to be career criminals.''

Waiting to catch an elevator at the courthouse Tuesday, she said: ``I'm tired of the whole system, the whole case. I'm just tired.''

Richard Rosenbaum, an attorney who previously represented Tate, called his former client ``a good person.''

''He has a good heart,'' Rosenbaum said. ``Unfortunately, society sort of ruined him by sending him away the way they did.''

Comments

It is possible to create positive change no matter what the given circumstance.
Lionel and his Mother have our support. We believe in the efforts put forth previously by attorney Richard Rosenbaum and Jim Lewis as well as Private Investigator Joe Carrillo.

We will continue to seek positive influence by way of education and support so that
when it is time for his release he will have a foundation for contribution to society.

This is out of respect for the life of Tiffany Eunick something that is never
out of our thoughts.

Children can be tried as adults, but this still will not make them become one.
Change will only come by creating it.
--
Denise Marhoefer
The Defense Foundation For Children USA
The Juvenile Defender
defensefoundation@gmail.com


Posted by: Denise Marhoefer

Lionel Tate Gets 10 Years In Robbery Plea Deal

FT. LAUDERDALE (CBS4) ― Convicted child killer Lionel Tate was back in court Tuesday morning where he made a plea deal in connection with charges that he robbed a pizza delivery man.

Right before jury selection was scheduled to begin, Tate, 21, pled no contest to a charge of armed robbery with a deadly weapon.

He received a ten year sentence to run concurrently with a 30-year sentence he received last year for violating his probation after he was caught with a gun.

Tate allegedly held up that pizza delivery man in 2005. A second charge of probation violation was dropped.

Tate's mother, Kathleen Grossett Tate, left court saying: "I'm tired of the whole system, the whole case, I'm just tired."

Despite Tuesday's plea deal, this case if far from over.

Tate's attorney, Jim Lewis, plans to appeal the 30 year probation violation sentence claiming that it is excessive because Lionel wasn't the one waving the gun in the robbery.

"Yes, Lionel participated in the theft but he was not standing there with a gun, robbing somebody," according to Lewis.

An effort last year to get Tate's robbery case thrown out failed when an appeals court upheld that 30-year probation violation sentence.

Tate was trying to have his sentence thrown out by claiming his attorney was incompetent. But the 4th District Court of Appeals declined to reverse it.

In 2001, Tate was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 6-year-old playmate Tiffany Eunick. In 2004, an appeals court overturned that sentence, and ordered him to serve a year's house arrest and 10 years probation.

Before the appeals court intervened, Tate was the youngest person in modern U.S. history to get a life prison term. He was 12 at the time of the killing.

Lionel Tate gets 10 years in pizza delivery robbery

FORT LAUDERDALE - Lionel Tate pleaded no contest Tuesday to charges stemming from the May 2005 robbery of a pizza delivery man.

Tate, dressed in tan slacks and a long-sleeved shirt, accepted a 10-year prison sentence to run concurrently with a 30-year sentence for violating his probation.

Tate, now 21, was convicted in 2001 of murdering first-grade playmate Tiffany Eunick when he was only 12. The conviction was overturned, and Tate later pleaded guilty to second degree murder in that case. He was sentenced to probation, which prosecutors say he violated by robbing a pizza delivery man in 2005. The violation earned him the 30-year sentence.

Had he been convicted of armed robbery with a deadly weapon, Tate could have faced life in prison.

Tate was 14 when he was sentenced to life in prison for the 1999 killing of Eunick, which happened when he was 12. Tate's lawyers initially claimed that the girl died accidentally while Tate imitated pro wrestling moves he had seen on television.

After his murder conviction was overturned on appeal in 2004, Tate reached a plea deal that included his release from prison on probation. It was this probation that a judge ruled he had violated through involvement in the pizza robbery.

If he had been convicted after a trial of the robbery charges, Tate could have received a life prison sentence once again. Tate had previously agreed in 2006 to plead guilty to the robbery, but withdrew it.

For now, Tate is tentatively scheduled for release from prison in May 2031, according to the state Department of Corrections.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Youngest person sentenced to life won't get additional time for robbery

The Associated Press

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Lionel Tate, whose killing of a 6-year-old girl once made him the youngest person in modern U.S. history sentenced to life in prison, accepted a plea deal Tuesday in a pizza robbery that occurred while he was out on probation.

Tate, 21, is already serving 30 years behind bars for violating his probation in the murder case. Under an agreement with prosecutors, Tate pleaded no contest to the May 2005 robbery of a pizza delivery man but will serve no additional prison time.

Tate attorney Jim Lewis said the 10-year sentence for the robbery conviction will run at the same time as the probation violation sentence. Lewis said he will continue to press to reduce Tate's total sentence to 10 years.

"This is definitely a good outcome for him and hopefully it's not the end," Lewis said. "Thirty years is too much. Lionel has made mistakes. But I think 10 years is plenty of punishment."

Tate was 14 when he was sentenced to life in prison for the 1999 killing of Tiffany Eunick, which happened when he was 12. Tate's lawyers initially claimed that the girl died accidentally while Tate imitated pro wrestling moves he had seen on television.

After his murder conviction was overturned on appeal in 2004, Tate reached a plea deal that included his release from prison on probation. It was this probation that a judge ruled he had violated through involvement in the pizza robbery.

If he had been convicted after a trial of the robbery charges, Tate could have received a life prison sentence once again. Tate had previously agreed in 2006 to plead guilty to the robbery, but withdrew it.

For now, Tate is tentatively scheduled for release from prison in May 2031, according to the state Department of Corrections.