Fort Lauderdale, Fla. – Lionel Tate, who was the youngest person ever sentenced in the United States to life in prison without parole but who later was freed, was behind bars Tuesday after allegedly holding up a pizza deliveryman at gunpoint, officials said.
It was the second time that Tate, 18, had been arrested since his release from prison last year.
He had been convicted in 2001 of beating a 6-year-old playmate to death two years earlier, when he was 12. Tate’s lawyers argued at the time that he had been mimicking wrestling moves he’d seen on television and that he hadn’t intended to murder the girl.
On Monday afternoon, said Liz Calzadilla-Fiallo, spokeswoman for the Broward County sheriff’s office, Tate allegedly phoned in an order for four Domino’s pizzas from a friend’s apartment in Pembroke Park, Fla.
When the deliveryman arrived, Tate “had a gun and held him up,” Calzadilla-Fiallo said.
Deliveryman Walter Ernesto Gallardo, 44, reportedly dropped the pizzas and ran down the stairs, falling and injuring himself.
When sheriff’s deputies responded to Gallardo’s 911 call, he identified Tate as the armed robber, the spokeswoman said.
According to investigators, Tate forced his way back into the apartment after chasing the deliveryman and allegedly struck his friend, a 12-year-old.
He was being held without bail in the Broward County jail in Fort Lauderdale on charges of armed burglary with battery, armed robbery and violation of probation.
Tate’s first-degree murder conviction and life sentence – which drew national and international attention – were overturned on appeal in 2004,
He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and, in January 2004, was allowed to go home with his mother, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper, to serve a year of house arrest, followed by 10 years of probation.
In September, he was arrested for being outdoors at 2 a.m. with a knife, but the teen managed to avoid prison time by admitting to breaking the conditions of his probation.
