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Second chance ends with guilty plea

Freed from life sentence, teen faces 30 years for robbery

Lionel Tate, 19, talks with jail staffers as he is escorted into court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (AP) -- Lionel Tate, once the youngest person to be sentenced to life in prison, faces up to 30 years behind bars for robbing a pizza delivery man after he was freed.

"Yes, sir," Tate said when Broward County Circuit Judge Joel T. Lazarus asked him Wednesday if he would plead guilty to the robbery. Lazarus scheduled sentencing for April 3 and said Tate could receive 10 to 30 years.

A plea agreement spares Tate, 19, a possible life sentence for violating probation for the 1999 killing of a young girl.

Tate's attorney, Ellis Rubin, said the evidence in the pizza robbery case was "overwhelming" and that Tate got the best deal he could.

"This was the only professional and ethical thing to do," Rubin said. "I think justice was done today."

Tate also admitted that he had violated probation by possessing a gun during the robbery last May, and that he violated laws by doing so.

Lazarus said that any sentence he imposes for those violations would run concurrently with the robbery sentence.

Mom: 'It's very emotional'

Tate's mother, Florida Highway Patrol trooper Kathleen Grossett-Tate, said she was "hopeful" that Lazarus would impose the minimum 10-year sentence and that her son was optimistic about his future once he is finally released.

"He's as OK as he can be," she said. "It's very emotional."

Prosecutor Chuck Morton said the family of the girl Tate killed in 1999 had agreed to the plea bargain.

Tate said little in the brief hearing except to answer the judge's questions. He will continue to be held without bail. He did not have to be convicted of the robbery for Lazarus to send him back to prison, but the guilty plea settles the matter.

The guilty plea is the latest twist in the long-running case of Tate, who was convicted of killing 6-year-old Tiffany Eunick when he was 12.

Tate came to national attention after Eunick's murder at his mother's home. The boy's lawyers initially claimed that the girl, who suffered skull fractures and a lacerated liver, was accidentally killed when Tate imitated pro wrestling moves he'd seen on television.

Murder conviction thrown out

He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in 2001. Three years later, an appeals tossed out the conviction and sentence.

The court ruled that it wasn't clear Tate understood what was happening to him. He then pleaded guilty to second-degree murder as part of a deal with prosecutors and was sentenced to 10 years' probation.

Lazarus added five more years to the probation term after Tate was arrested in September 2004 for carrying a knife with a four-inch blade. The judge warned Tate then that he had "zero tolerance" for future violations.

Police say it didn't take long for Tate to find trouble again.

Tate called Domino's Pizza last May 23 from a friend's apartment and ordered four pizzas. A friend later told police that Tate, armed with a revolver, hid behind the apartment door when delivery man arrived with the order.

The delivery man, who dropped the pizzas and ran after seeing the gun, identified Tate and, police said, Tate's fingerprints were found on the pizza boxes. There were also text messages on Tate's cell phone planning the robbery.

Tate was also suspected in the theft of weapons from his mother.

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